Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins really should have found better things to do than star in horrible horror remake
THE WOLFMAN (Joe Johnston, 2010)
Opens Friday, February 12
www.thewolfmanmovie.com
Universal put together an all-star lineup for its big-budget remake of its own 1941 horror classic, THE WOLF MAN, but everything did not quite go as planned. A year delay was promulgated by the first director, Mark Romanek, quitting, composer Danny Elfman walking out, monster guru Rick Baker having to redo his initial batch of designs, one of the leads unable to join the rest of the cast for some very late reshoots, and a pair of emergency editors being rushed in to salvage at least something. Well, they should have left it all on the cutting-room floor. THE WOLFMAN (yes, they made it one word, probably to make it easier to find in web searches?) is indeed the very disaster it looked like it would be, a soulless reimagining of George Waggner’s psychologically dramatic and sweetly charming original. The schlocky new production stars Benicio Del Toro as Lawrence Talbot, the prodigal son returning to the family homestead following the disappearance of his highly esteemed brother. Lawrence immediately falls for his brother’s fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), while attempting to get along with his regal father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins), but all of the relationships in the film feel forced. Director Joe Johnston (JURASSIC PARK III) eschews real terror in favor of cheap thrills and unnecessary violence, although there are a couple of pretty cool beheadings. But by the end, you’ll find yourself laughing out loud at the utterly absurd dialogue, which doesn’t even qualify as camp, though it does come close in a few places.
Juhn Jai-hong’s 2008 debut feature, BEAUTIFUL, based on an unfinished script by Kim Ki-duk, is a harrowing psychological tale of dangerous obsession. Cha Soo-yeon stars as Kim Eun-young, a beautiful woman who wants to live a normal life but is constantly harassed by teenage girls who want her autograph, refusing to believe she is not a celebrity, and men who are uncontrollably drawn to her because of her perfect face and body. When one of her many secret admirers attacks her in her apartment, she soon decides to try extreme methods to change her appearance as she begins a slow descent into madness. At first, a local detective (Choi Myeong-soo) seeks to protect her, but he becomes obsessed with her as well, leading to a violent, dramatic conclusion. BEAUTIFUL goes from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again as Kim proclaims her desire to live despite the horrible things that are happening to her, with Junh alternating between the lurid and the exploitative to the poignant and heartbreaking, in some ways a mix of executive producer Kim Ki-Duk’s TIME and BAD GUY. The film is being screened as part of Korean Movie Night presented at Tribeca Cinemas by the Korean Cultural Service; the series continues on February 23 with BREATHLESS, a film written, directed by, and starring Yang Ik-june, followed by three films in March and April (every other Tuesday) that are all being remade in America.
After playing film festivals around the world, Philippe Diaz’s THE END OF POVERTY? ran for one week last year at Village East and is now being rereleased at Cinema Village, bringing its critical take on the global financial crisis. Speaking with Nobel Prize winners, economists, writers, politicians, researchers, and other experts, Diaz attempts to get at the heart of international poverty — particularly by tugging at the audience’s heartstrings. He intercuts shots of talking heads discussing slavery and colonialism, the World Bank, the free market, the International Monetary Fund, and government bailouts with portraits of men, women, and children living in squalor in Africa, Latin America, the United States, and elsewhere. He supplements the film with a barrage of statistics that, individually, are infuriating but, taken as a whole, get lost in a whirlwind of numbers. Adding to the overkill is Martin Sheen’s over-the-top narration, which piles up yet more information and outrage. But even as the film sometimes feels like a Sally Struthers save-the-children infomercial, its crucial message does manage to pull through and take root — the money is out there, but its incredibly lopsided distribution in a warped system is basically set up to keep the imbalance that has led to such a tragic situation.