The
goddess Shiva is both creator and destroyer, and in Richard Linklatter’s
documentary, Timothy “Speed” Levitch, makes the case that she is a
perfect symbol for the World Trade Center disaster. While acknowledging
the tragedy, “Speed” also sees it as an opportunity to create something
new and vital with the land now known as “ground zero”. Speed also
ruminates on various other related, and unrelated, topics in this short
film. Whether or not you find this movie interesting largely depends on
your attitude towards “Speed”. The famous director aside, this is all
his show. “Speed” is basically one of those guys you’re inclined to
write off as an amusing nut at first, but amidst the strange metaphors
and odd ideas that make up his monologue are occasional pieces of real
insight. As with the other short doc recently released by Aspyr,
‘Growin’ a Beard’, the company makes up for the brevity of the main
attraction with a lot of bonus features. (Bob Ignizio)
A
documentary about the national spelling bee? Yep, and a damn good one,
too. ‘Spellbound’ follows 8 kids from all kinds of backgrounds as they
prepare for, and ultimately compete in, one of the few contests that rewards
intelligence over physical abilitiy. While the competition itself is
surprisingly gripping, the most interesting aspect of the movie is what it
shows us about the kids and their families. We see how for some of the
immigrant parents, making the finals of the spelling bee isn’t just a
competition, but confirmation of the American Dream. Not surprisingly,
‘Spellbound’ also shows us how smart kids are often marginalized by their
peers. There are also some nice humorous touches, like a sign a business in
one kid’s hometown puts up offering “conradulations”.
It’s nice
to see that despite the harsh nature of the competition (miss one word and
you’re out, no second chances), the kids all seem to take it pretty well.
And although some of the parents take their children’s preparations for
competition quite seriously, unlike a lot of Little League parents, none of
them seem angry at their kids for not winning. They’re just proud that they
made it as far as they did, no small accomplishment in itself. The only
misstep in the documentary is that it interviews the winner of the
competition about their victory shortly before showing us the end of
the competition itself. It doesn’t ruin the movie, since it’s more about
the people than the contest, but it seems like a strange editing choice.
Regardless, ‘Spellbound’ gets my full recommendation. (Bob Ignizio)
Sometimes
low expectations can work in a movie’s favor. In this case, I fully
expected this to be a suckfest of monumental proportions. Instead I
found it to be a fun, more or less brainless, movie about vampires
fighting werewolves. Kate Beckinsale is a vampire trained to hunt
werewolves. As the movie begins, we find her with a group of other
hunters tracking some Lycans, as the werewolves are called. The Lycans
are themselves apparently following a human named Michael (Scott
Speedman), and when they realize there are vampires around, a battle
between the two sides erupts. Head vampire Kraven (Shane Brolly) tells
Beckinsale that werewolves are only interested in humans as prey, and to
forget about it. She doesn’t, and eventually discovers a conspiracy
among the ranks of her own kind to cooperate with the werewolves in
creating a supermonster that can combine the attributes of both
species. Beckinsale figures the answer lies with Michael. There’s also
a subplot about who really killed Beckinsale’s parents. Was it
werewolves as she’s been led to believe, or the very vampire who
“turned” her into one of the undead?
The movie a nice “black and white in color” look to
it, and takes its potentially campy premise seriously. There’s a lot of
convoluted plot, but a lot of fun action scenes, as well. My biggest
complaint has to do with the werewolves. They’re just not presented as
any real challenge for the vampires, and they don’t go all fuzzy often
enough. A lot of scenes are heavy on gunplay, and could just as easily
be in a movie without any supernatural slant. I still enjoyed watching
the movie, though. It’s not something I’d watch again, but it was worth
a rental. If you’re in the mood for some action/horror cheese, you
could do a lot worse. (Bob Ignizio)
When
given a choice between the truth and the legend, many people will choose
the legend. That may explain why John Holmes continues to be viewed as
a “fun” icon of the golden age of adult cinema despite a great deal of
evidence that he was, pure and simple, a scumbag. Believe me, I’m not
on any moral quest against the adult film industry. In fact, I’ve
watched and enjoyed some of Holmes’ films. Compared to the XXX films of
today, the “Johnny Wadd” flicks Holmes made are nostalgic kitsch. But
the real life Holmes, towards the end of his career at least, was
involved in a whole lot of bad stuff. This movie deals with perhaps the
most sordid chapter in Holmes’ life, the “Wonderland” murders.
Holmes was by this time a major drug addict. He
had burned many of the dealers in town, but Ron Launius (Josh Lucas)
liked having him around his place on Wonderland as sort of a pet
celebrity. Another dealer who liked having Holmes around was Eddy Nash
(Eric Bogosian), also a night club owner in LA. Nash also fenced stolen
property, and Launius asked Holmes to sell some hot antique guns to
him. Nash either took the guns outright without paying, or gave Holmes
a pittance. Ultimately, this led to the guys from the Wonderland house
breaking into Nash’s home and stealing drugs, money, jewelry, and other
items while pointing guns at Nash and his associates. They did this in
an extremely sloppy manner, making their trail easy to trace. Nash then
exacted his revenge by having the thieves killed. This much is known,
but the details vary between Holme’s account, and the story told by
David Lindh (Dylan McDermott), a member of the Wonderland circle who
happened to be out of town when the murders took place. The movie shows
us both versions, and also includes bits of information gleaned from
Holmes’ estranged wife Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), and Holmes’ girlfriend Dawn
(Kate Bosworth).
The ‘Rashomon’-like structure of the screenplay
isn’t just a gimmick. In the face of two conflicting stories, probably
neither of which is completely truthful, it’s the only way to really
tell the story. Either way, though, Holmes was at least partially
responsible for the bloodbath at Wonderland. Val Kilmer does an
excellent job as Holmes. His mannerisms and way of speaking are
dead-on. I’d say ‘Boogie Nights’, a highly fictionalized version of
Holmes’ life, including the Wonderland incident, is a much better film.
That said, ‘Wonderland’ is a compelling, well made movie in its own
right. It’s not anything special, but it’s worth watching if you’re
into “true crime”, seventies and eighties porn, and the sordid side of
life in general.
Just a note about the DVD: As a really nice bonus
feature, ‘Wonderland’ includes a second disc containing the ‘R’rated
version of the John Holmes documentary ‘Wadd: The Life and Times of
John Holmes’. It doesn’t have any of the many bonus features included
on the official release of ‘Wadd’ by VCA pictures, but for most people
it should be more than sufficient to get across some of the backstory
for anyone who isn’t familiar with Hohn Holmes. The only difference I
could see between the version here, and the uncut one, is that the
hardcore clips from Holmes’ movies are shown in such a way as to obscure
anything too strong for an ‘R’ rating. The running times are the same.
(Bob Ignizio)
The
goddess Shiva is both creator and destroyer, and in Richard Linklatter’s
documentary, Timothy “Speed” Levitch, makes the case that she is a
perfect symbol for the World Trade Center disaster. While acknowledging
the tragedy, “Speed” also sees it as an opportunity to create something
new and vital with the land now known as “ground zero”. Speed also
ruminates on various other related, and unrelated, topics in this short
film. Whether or not you find this movie interesting largely depends on
your attitude towards “Speed”. The famous director aside, this is all
his show. “Speed” is basically one of those guys you’re inclined to
write off as an amusing nut at first, but amidst the strange metaphors
and odd ideas that make up his monologue are occasional pieces of real
insight. As with the other short doc recently released by Aspyr,
‘Growin’ a Beard’, the company makes up for the brevity of the main
attraction with a lot of bonus features. (Bob Ignizio)
A
documentary about the national spelling bee? Yep, and a damn good one,
too. ‘Spellbound’ follows 8 kids from all kinds of backgrounds as they
prepare for, and ultimately compete in, one of the few contests that rewards
intelligence over physical abilitiy. While the competition itself is
surprisingly gripping, the most interesting aspect of the movie is what it
shows us about the kids and their families. We see how for some of the
immigrant parents, making the finals of the spelling bee isn’t just a
competition, but confirmation of the American Dream. Not surprisingly,
‘Spellbound’ also shows us how smart kids are often marginalized by their
peers. There are also some nice humorous touches, like a sign a business in
one kid’s hometown puts up offering “conradulations”. 
Sometimes
low expectations can work in a movie’s favor. In this case, I fully
expected this to be a suckfest of monumental proportions. Instead I
found it to be a fun, more or less brainless, movie about vampires
fighting werewolves. Kate Beckinsale is a vampire trained to hunt
werewolves. As the movie begins, we find her with a group of other
hunters tracking some Lycans, as the werewolves are called. The Lycans
are themselves apparently following a human named Michael (Scott
Speedman), and when they realize there are vampires around, a battle
between the two sides erupts. Head vampire Kraven (Shane Brolly) tells
Beckinsale that werewolves are only interested in humans as prey, and to
forget about it. She doesn’t, and eventually discovers a conspiracy
among the ranks of her own kind to cooperate with the werewolves in
creating a supermonster that can combine the attributes of both
species. Beckinsale figures the answer lies with Michael. There’s also
a subplot about who really killed Beckinsale’s parents. Was it
werewolves as she’s been led to believe, or the very vampire who
“turned” her into one of the undead? 
When
given a choice between the truth and the legend, many people will choose
the legend. That may explain why John Holmes continues to be viewed as
a “fun” icon of the golden age of adult cinema despite a great deal of
evidence that he was, pure and simple, a scumbag. Believe me, I’m not
on any moral quest against the adult film industry. In fact, I’ve
watched and enjoyed some of Holmes’ films. Compared to the XXX films of
today, the “Johnny Wadd” flicks Holmes made are nostalgic kitsch. But
the real life Holmes, towards the end of his career at least, was
involved in a whole lot of bad stuff. This movie deals with perhaps the
most sordid chapter in Holmes’ life, the “Wonderland” murders. 