THE EYE 3 -- Movie Review by Porfle

(This review first appeared online at Bumscorner.com in 2008.)

First off, THE EYE 3, aka "Gin gwai 3" (2005) is directed by the Pang brothers, who also directed THE EYE and THE EYE 2. But the international English title for it is THE EYE 10. And according to IMDb, Tsui Hark is in the process of directing another movie called THE EYE 3. Also, this film is known in some European countries as THE EYE: INFINITY, which I guess clears things up, not.

Now we've gotten all that out of the way, I'll admit that I haven't seen THE EYE 1 or 2. But from reading their summaries I see that they are referred to during an early scene in which five young friends--one living there in Thailand, the other four visiting from Hong Kong--are staying up late telling ghost stories. When these stories fail to produce sufficient giddy scares, the Thai dude, Chongkwai (Ray MacDonald), whips out a book he found one night in a dark, mysterious bookstore. The book claims to contain ten surefire methods for calling forth ghosts. This, of course, gets the other youngsters all goose-pimply with excitement and they can't wait to try them out, which they will later learn to deeply regret.

These early scenes let us know that at least part of THE EYE 3 is pretty much a comedy laced with mildly scary elements. As I watched the five friends using the various tips from the book to conjure up ghosts and then writhing in rubber-faced terror, it reminded me, of all things, of Don Knotts' THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN. As in, more amusing than actually scary. The ghosts look pretty cool and there are some fairly good goose-shots here and there, but very little of this is truly creepy or disturbing. Much of it, in fact, might even be labeled "family friendly" Halloween-type fare.

Things start to get somewhat more serious when one of the rituals backfires and Gofei (Chris Gu) disappears. When days go by with no sign of him, cousins Ted (Chen Po Lin) and May (cutie-pie Kate Yeung) dejectedly return to Hong Kong while Gofei's inconsolable girlfriend April (Lok-si Leung) stays behind to continue the search. A series of frightening ghostly encounters in Hong Kong drives Ted and May back to Thailand to put the matter to rest once and for all, with the help of Chongkwai and his spirit guide mother. Meanwhile, April has turned up missing as well.

All of this is nicely directed and shot and the performances are good. Little of it is very scary, though. May has a run-in with a ghost in the hallway of her apartment building, and when Ted comes to her aid he gets possessed and ends up in a break-dancing contest with a couple of teenagers, which he wins by walking on the ceiling. We also get the old "between the knees ghost peek", which gives the Pang brothers a chance to offer us a great view of May's rear baggage compartment.

Later, when Ted and May enter the spirit dimension in search of Gofei and are surrounded by hostile ghosts, they discover that the best way of warding them off is by--get this--farting. I don't know about you, but watching some intrepid ghostbusters farting back a bunch of oncoming wraiths doesn't exactly send chills up my spine. So, even in the midst of what should be the most frightening place of all, we get more of a sense of amusement than fear or dread.

There's a bit of a surprise at the end, and it fades out on a serious note that's rather poetic and haunting (pun intended) and somewhat sad. If the whole movie had maintained this sort of feeling in addition to ramping up the scare factor, it might have been memorable. As it is, though, THE EYE 3 is much like those ghost stories the kids tell each other early on--good, giddy fun for awhile, but soon forgotten.

THE EYE 3 -- Movie Review by Porfle

NOISE -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 8/30/08

If you're like me, you love your peace and quiet. And you hate for it to be constantly shattered by everyday noises such as jackhammers, back-up beepers, sirens, leaf blowers, cell phone yakkers, and the like. Ever wish you could do something about it?

In the 2007 comedy NOISE, David Owen (Tim Robbins), a successful businessman with a wife and daughter, is finally driven over the edge by the constant racket of New York City and goes on a one-man rampage that centers on his most hated source of unwanted noise--car alarms. After an opening titles montage of nerve-wracking city noises, the movie begins with a comical essay on how useless car alarms are, since even the police have learned to ignore them as they blare away unheeded. But David no longer ignores them as they blast him awake at night, keep his baby daughter crying at all hours, and finally even cause him to be impotent with his wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan). So, with a hammer and a pair of wire cutters, he begins to disable every car alarm he hears and vandalize the cars.

This lands David in and out of jail and puts a strain on his marriage when his wife just can't understand his sonic fanaticism. After she kicks him out, he pursues his quest in earnest as "The Rectifier", stalking the streets in shades and a hoodie and eventually gaining a measure of support from the locals. One of his victims, a beautiful young Russian woman named Ekaterina (Margarita Levieva), becomes fascinated with David and joins him in his crusade, refining his methods by helping him organize a petition to ban car alarms. (They also have an affair, of course.) But standing in their way is the crooked, abrasive Mayor Schneer (William Hurt), who has about as much regard for "The Rectifier" as J. Jonah Jameson has for Spiderman.

Writer-director Henry Bean, who based the screenplay on his own wire-snipping exploits, gives much of NOISE a casual, freewheeling visual style. Split-screens show us how certain situations might be ideally resolved (David calmly and politely handling a couple of cops) and how they actually end up (David freaking out and getting thrown in the slammer). The non-linear narrative fiddles around with the story in interesting ways as David meets Ekaterina early on and fills her in on his history in a series of flashbacks that eventually fit together like puzzle pieces.

David's anti-noise obsession and his feelings of helplessness in the face of the general public's weary acceptance of such affronts comes to represent the way people have gradually relinquished their rights over time and become willing pawns of those in power. As Robbins says in an interview segment: "We're dealing with a lot of encroachments on our peace of mind, we're dealing with it simply by accepting it." 

 Strangely enough, Robbins the well-known liberal plays David as a Wall Street Republican type, since the moral relativism of his own political persuasion would necessitate the philosophy of "I think that's noise, but you don't--and that's okay." So, interestingly, Robbins felt the need to get into conservative mode in order to say "This is wrong, dammit, whether you think so or not."

It may not sound like much of a comedy, but there's a lot of funny stuff here. Tim Robbins is good at being the everyday guy going quietly over the edge until he can't take it anymore, expressing his rage with a sort of suppressed, indignant disbelief. And it's fun to see him bashing car windows so he can pop the hoods and snip the battery cables, or simply taking a hammer to various alarms and other noisemakers after reasonable requests for their deactivation have fallen upon deaf ears.

His friend Judson (Michael J. Burg), a reformed car thief who runs a garage, advises him on the best ways to deal with offending autos. In one of the best scenes, Judson helps him create a sort of sonic deathmobile packed to the gills with ear-splitting car alarms, which David uses to blast Mayor Schneer's vitally important meeting with some Japanese businessmen all to hell. The final courtroom sequence is fun but tends to get a tad farcical at times, and doesn't quite come off as the fist-in-the-air finale that the film needed. Nor is there a Travis Bickle-type "go for broke" ending that I halfway expected. 

The biggest "WTF?" moment in NOISE, perhaps, is a crude, softcore-porn scene with David, Ekaterina, and her friend Gruska (María Ballesteros), whose dissatisfaction with the aesthetic appearance of her genitals leads David to a philosophical epiphany that didn't really require three naked people lounging around gabbing about their junk.

With a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation and Dolby 2.0 surround, the DVD looks and sounds good, although much of that sound is, as you might guess, noise. Extras include almost forty minutes of interview segments with the cast, director, and producers, a director commentary, some behind-the-scenes footage of the courtroom sequence, and a trailer.

Silence is indeed golden, and if it weren't for the constant ringing in both my ears, I'd enjoy it as much as possible. So I could really identify with the hero of NOISE and root for him as he smashes and destroys things that make noise for noise's sake. There's even a small bit just for us cell phone haters--while David and Helen are having an emotional discussion about the state of their deteriorating marriage, her cell goes off and she instantly grabs for it, prompting David to snap, "Go ahead and get that--it's not like we're having a conversation or anything." Amen!

NOISE -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE REFLECTING SKIN -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 8/8/19

 

A stunningly beautiful film, Philip Ridley's 1990 psychological thriller THE REFLECTING SKIN (Film Movement Classics) is also stunningly weird.  His sweeping vistas of vast fields of wheat swaying in the breeze and dotted with rustic, rambling old houses may look like something out of Andrew Wyeth, but this twisted coming-of-age tale is pure rural American Gothic whose bright fascade hides a profound inner corruption.

We see it all through the eyes of eight-year-old Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper), who lives with his violently abusive mother Ruth (Sheila Moore) and feeble-minded father Luke (Duncan Fraser)--neither of whom is "all there"--behind an auto-repair garage with two rusty gas pumps. 

Ruth, who should be the subject of someone's psychiatric thesis, constantly complains about the smell of gasoline and grease, driving Luke to lose himself in cheap pulp magazines about vampires and such. It's touching to see how Seth gravitates toward his father, harmlessly lost in his pulp magazines, clearly out of his mind but comfortingly nonthreatening.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere is getting to Seth, too, and his playtime consists of things like inflating a live frog like a balloon so that he can leave it in the road and splatter it with a slingshot in the face of an unwary passerby.  The tragedy is that he seems like a sweet kid when life isn't slowly turning him into a sociopath, until he shocks us by doing something despicable.

Naturally, the strange woman living in the big, empty house nearby fires the imaginations of Seth and his two friends, Eben and Kim. After a visit in which she reveals that her young husband hanged himself in the barn years before, Seth gradually suspects that Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) is a vampire.

When his war-hero brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen) finally returns home from the South Pacific, Seth becomes convinced that Dolphin wants to seduce him and drain him of his life-giving blood. But when dead bodies start turning up, the local sheriff suspects Seth's oddball father due to some scandalously sordid events in his past.

The lead actors all are excellent here, especially Duncan as Dolphin Blue, who, as director Ridley points out, bears a similarity to Miss Havisham in Dickens' "Great Expectations." We're often as unsure of her intentions as Seth, although as the story unfolds we begin to see what a tragic and damaged figure she is.

Mortensen's Cameron surprises by behaving less nobly than we expect for a returning WWII hero, displaying a short temper that's sometimes directed at Seth. We think he's going to be a calm, stabilizing influence, but it soon becomes clear that he's a product of the same bizarre upbringing that's in the process of warping his little brother.

And while Cameron's sudden affair with Dolphin is desperately intense for both, the meeting of two such troubled souls is itself troubling.  She speaks of how exciting it was to be in London during the German bombings, and he talks of how beautiful it was to watch whole Pacific islands explode.

The most affecting performance, however, comes from young Jeremy Cooper as Seth.  He's fascinating to watch as the intensely emotional child who seems heartbreakingly normal one moment and frighteningly twisted the next.  (We can't blame Seth for being messed up after seeing how his mother treats him.)

Jeremy's concentration is such that the camera lingers on his face and expressive eyes as he loses himself in the part of the volatile young boy and gains our sympathy. Not once does he come off as a kid actor being directed or reciting lines, and much of his performance is quite intuitive.

Pictorially, THE REFLECTING SKIN is one of the most splendid films I've ever seen. Each carefully composed shot is exhilarating to behold as the cumulative effect washes over the viewer like the wind swaying those fields of wheat.  (We're reminded at times of Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN.)

 
This combines with the fever-dream strangeness of the story to produce a feeling that I didn't want to end.  It's like Tom Sawyer meets David Lynch, only more insidiously weird and unexpected and seductively intoxicating as it fluctuates between the mundane and the surreal. (And I haven't even mentioned a lot of the REALLY weird stuff.)

The Blu-ray from Film Movement Classics is in 1:85:1 widescreen with 2.0 stereo and English subtitles. The director oversaw the new 2K digital restoration which looks and sounds beautiful.  Besides his informative commentary, there's a lengthy featurette called "Angels & Atom Bombs: The Making of The Reflecting Skin" and trailers for this and other Film Movment Classics releases. Also included is an illustrated essay in booklet form.

THE REFLECTING SKIN is like one of those dreams which on the surface seems normal but just isn't quite right, and then without warning it kicks into nightmare gear and back again. Although I found the ending somewhat jarringly abrupt, and thus rather unsatisfying, it may just be that I simply didn't want this story to ever end and resented the fact that, eventually, it had to.


Buy it from Film Movement Classics

THE REFLECTING SKIN -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

RWBY: VOLUME 5 -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 5/28/18

 

When I was a kid, it was Santa Claus and the county fair that gave me some of my best annual thrills.  Now, it's the disc release of each season of Rooster Teeth/Cinedigm's mind-candy American anime series, "RWBY", the continuing adventures of those four multi-hued heroines Ruby Rose (red), Weiss Schnee (white), Blake Belladonna (black), and Ruby's sister Yang Xiao Long (yellow)--the latest of which being the 2-disc Blu-ray, RWBY: VOLUME 5. 

Here's the backstory: after a catastrophic war that almost destroyed everything, the world of Remnant has been divided into four kingdoms dedicated to maintaining peaceful relations.  Also drawing them together is a common enemy, the Grimms, a never-ending army of terrifying supernatural beasts that constantly attack both urban centers and outlying villages, drawn by negative emotions such as fear, panic, and hatred. 

The main line of defense consists of hunters and huntresses, those born with various super-powers who train from a young age at special academies until ready to take on the Grimms.  This is where we first met Team RWBY shortly before their academy was attacked and virtually destroyed by a combination of Grimms and a group of terrorists known as White Fang, made up of human-animal hybrids called Faunus under the command of a secret cabal of sinister villains.

As season five commences, the mixed group of RWBY and JNPR (Juniper) team members have completed their arduous journey to the neighboring land of Mistral and its Haven Academy, in a quest to gather more huntsmen and huntresses for the battles to come.  But all is not well--the academy has been infiltrated by evil forces of both White Fang and the dreaded sorceress, Salem, and most of its best warriors murdered.

Meanwhile, Ruby's sister Yang is not only dealing with her new robot arm but must confront her own mother, Raven, now a renegade criminal with very dark dealings involving Salem and her minions.  These include vengeful Cinder and some of the worst members of White Fang, who are now targeting Blake and her family because of their efforts to establish peaceful relations between the Faunus and the human race.

It may sound complicated, but darn if all this drama and intrigue isn't just as riveting as the many intense battle sequences that occur during these fifteen serial-like chapters.  The characters are all fascinating and beautifully conceived, with scintillating dialogue that's either richly dramatic or breezily funny. 

This time there is, in fact, much more personal and political intrigue, now that more of a foundation for such plot complications has been gradually established over the previous seasons and our increased familiarity with the characters makes deeper explorations of them possible.  Both good and bad guys this time around are three-dimensional and increasingly interesting to observe. 

As always, the looks of the series is absolutely gorgeous--even moreso, now that the technology used in creating the digitally simulated "cel animation" look of the show has gotten better and better over time.  Never has "RWBY" looked this gorgeous, richly colorful, and stunningly designed.  The result is often breathtaking, and always a treat for the eyes.

As for the battles themselves, they're choreographed and executed for maximum drama and excitement, with new species of Grimm as well as new human and Faunus opponents.  In an early episode, Weiss takes on a swarm of Grimm resembling giant hornets who attack the transport she's using to get to Mistral.  In the thrilling finale, all the forces of good and evil clash in a prolonged battle that spans several chapters and had me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

The 2-disc Blu-ray set from Rooster Teeth/Cinedigm contains the 15-chapter saga on one disc and special features on the other.  These include exciting character studies (deleted scenes), a "Five Years of RWBY" series recap, a collection of featurettes ("CRWBY") detailing various elements of the show's creation, and a manga booklet. Total story running time: 244 minutes.  Widescreen with English Dolby 5.1.  English captions are available.

As always, RWBY: VOLUME 5 kept me thoroughly, deliriously entertained and left me wanting more.  So while my younger friends are awaiting Santa's return, I'll be looking forward to my next annual wallow in the incredible adventures of my current favorite cartoon heroes. 

Release date: June 5, 2018

RWBY: VOLUME 5 -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

RWBY: VOLUME 4 -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/5/17

 

If you're a RWBY fan, then you're already stoked for the next installment in the series as presented in this Blu-ray/DVD combo from Rooster Teeth and Cinedigm.  If not, then RWBY: VOLUME 4 (2017) should be a good introduction to those four color-coordinated heroines Ruby Rose (red), Weiss Schnee (white), Blake Belladonna (black), and Ruby's sister Yang Xiao Long (yellow).

Long story short: after a catastrophic war that almost destroyed everything, the world of Remnant has been divided into four kingdoms dedicated to maintaining peaceful relations.  Also drawing them together is a common enemy, the Grimms, a never-ending army of terrifying supernatural beasts that constantly attack both urban centers and outlying villages, drawn by negative emotions such as fear, panic, and hatred. 

The main line of defense consists of hunters and huntresses, those born with various super-powers who train from a young age at special academies until ready to take on the Grimms.  This is where we first met Team RWBY shortly before their academy was attacked and virtually destroyed by a combination of Grimms and a group of terrorists known as White Fang, made up of human-animal hybrids called Faunus under the command of a secret cabal of sinister villains.

 

Volume 4 opens after the previous season's terrific climactic battle has left all four kingdoms in chaos and the RWBY team scattered.  Weiss has returned to her palatial home where her stepfather runs the family "Dust" business in decidedly shady fashion and all is definitely not well.  Blake has also returned to her parents estate on the Faunus continent accompanied by Sun, a boisterous young fellow with an eye for her.  Ruby's sister Yang is still recovering from the loss of both her right arm in the battle and her self-confidence and resolve, which the girls' father is doing his best to restore. 

The main thrust of the season's story, however, is the cross-country trek of Ruby and her friends Jaune, Ren, and Nora (formerly of team JNPR until the tragic death of the valiant huntress Pyrrha) to reach the kingdom of Mistral.  It's one of those grand, heroic journeys filled with much self-discovery and character revelations, not to mention intense life-or-death battles with some of the largest, fiercest, and most horrific Grimms that we've seen thus far. 

The route takes them through the vast wilderness between populated areas and also through various secluded villages, some of which need their help vanquishing particularly hostile Grimms, and others which have already been utterly destroyed by either Grimms or marauding bandits.  One smoking ruin prompts Ren to recall his history as a boy whose parents were killed before his eyes by a bloodthirsty beast, and how he assumed responsibility for another lost soul, the destitute orphan Nora.

 

 

While Yang struggles to regain her confidence and learn how to use her new robotic arm, Blake and Sun's ocean cruise to the Faunus continent is both incredibly scenic--the show is pictorially intoxicating as usual--but highlighted by a spectacular battle with a flying sea dragon.  Once they've reached their destination, the drama continues with Blake's parents clashing with the socially-awkward Sun as well as two highly-suspicious emissaries from the White Fang group.

As usual, we're left with a cliffhanger ending to keep us on edge until the next season begins, with Ruby's team reaching Mistral but discovering that much is not as they expected.  Meanwhile, the main villains of the saga, led by mysterious white goddess Salem and her evil underlings (including last season's traitorous huntress Cinder) keep a low profile and bide their time for a later, more catastrophic strike, with only the near-invincible madman Tyrian directly engaging our heroes in fierce battle during their journey.

Through it all, RWBY VOL. 4 carries on this sharply-written series' tradition of scintillating dialogue and character interactions that make the less action-packed segments just as riveting as the frentic battles--which, as usual, are both lightning-paced and imaginatively staged, striking just the right balance between humor (especially with the girlishly excitable Nora) and dead seriousness, as when a key member of Ruby's group is critically injured.

Visually, the series is a feast of colorful CGI settings and pleasingly executed motion-capture figures that move well and are exquisitely designed. While I still prefer cel animation in my cartoons, I gladly make an exception when a three-dimensional CGI simulation of old-school anime such as this is rendered to such lavish and eye-pleasing effect. Voice performances and music are outstanding as well.

The "It's Also a Gun" Special Edition Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Pack contains both a Blu-ray disc and a DVD, along with a collectible Crescent Rose lenticular card featuring Ruby's distinctive scythe-shaped weapon ("It's also a gun").  Also available in Blu-ray/DVD and DVD editions.  Total story running time: 190 minutes.  Widescreen with English Dolby 5.1.  English captions are available.

Bonus featurettes include: "World of Remnant: Kingdoms", "World of Remnant: The Great War", "World of Remnant: Schnee Dust Company", "World of Remnant: Faunus", "World of Remnant: Between Kingdoms", "Behind the Scenes: A Grimm Introduction", and "Behind the Scenes: RWBY 4 Production Diary", plus audio commentaries. 

With RWBY: VOL. 4, this series remains one of my favorite and most eagerly-anticipated of any genre adventures being created today.  While not quite as action-intensive as the previous season, this one more than compensates with a richness of story and character that lends even greater impact to the slam-bang battle sequences.


Buy it from Rooster Teeth

Read our original coverage

Street date: June 6, 2017

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RWBY: VOLUME 4 -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle