WASSUP ROCKERS - Larry Clark is off his meds again, good thing too

Purveryor of movies and photos about fucked up teens, Larry Clark, is back with yet another movie about teens, although this time, the kids are all right, at least to start with. Clark's kids in WASSUP ROCKERS are a group of Hispanic (six Salvadorean and one Guatemalan) teens living in broken and poor homes in South Central, LA. Skaters and punk rockers all, they are total outsiders, to the black kids they go to school with, who all want to know "why they wear their shit so tight?" and to an outside world that really doesn't care about their existence until they come knocking. Living the American teen dream, they hang out with a purpose; skating wherever they can, taking on the world together, trying to get laid and giving each other shit. The characters are fantastic, from Jonathan, lead singer of their band and heartthrob extraordinaire to Milton, who would no longer like to be called "spermball" and Kico, who is so cute he really ought to get laid but something keeps happening to fuck it up. The other characters are developed to varying extent but are interesting in their own right. Part of why the characters are so interesting and ring so true lies in the fact that they are all amateurs playing themselves basically. Half the characters share their names with the actors playing them.

The first half of the movie plays slowly and aimlessly, more like a paen to teen boredom than any attempt at storytelling and it's really good but really slow. If you've seen any of Clark's movies, you already know about his obssession with the world of teenagers and there is no shortage of material for him here. With racism, class conflict, teen sexuality, growing up in an urban environment all examined in such detail, this movie could have been titled "An ethnographic study of deprived Hispanic youth who live in the Los Angeles dystopia and the things they do for kicks." That is, before you get into the LSD inspired second half of the movie where the narrative really kicks in as our heros leave home and go skating in Beverly Hills only to be plunged into one insane adventure after the other. The movie develops a magnificently mean sense of humor, with cliches aplenty, a body count and twisted joke after twisted joke. After the slow buildup of the first half of the movie and the near documentary realism of it, adjusting to the zaniness and mischief of the latter half of the movie is both disconcerting and fun. This is kind of a must see.

Wassup Rockers is in limited theatrical release around the US. I don't know when, if ever it's coming to a country near you.

THE PROMISE - More of that high flying mystical Chinese soap opera stuff

The Chinese sure love their cinematography. Few American movies can match the investment movies like THE PROMISE make in their dedication to color and cinematic beauty. Every scene a painting, every character ultra vivid, these movies are incredible to look at. Of course, the price you pay for that is enduring unbelievably corny dialogue and entirely ridiculous story arcs that strain your ability to remain in the cinema as they take place.

Yet THE PROMISE is very much worth watching, particularly if you're a fan of this kind of cinema or just fantasy in general. The characters are all in boldface; the doomed beauty, the brash and conquering general, the embittered villain, the mysterious assassin and most important, the slave who really isn't a slave. In terms of broad narrative, The Promise is actually really good, an epic and grand adventure with characters who have to discover themselves in order to come to terms with the world, others that rise and fall from glory and a resolution to the whole thing that is satisfying without being saccharine.

So the narrative problems don't occur in the broad story arc. They are credulity straining loose ends left unanswered that nag and annoy the viewer (and likely destroy the movie for most of the audience to be honest). The rationale of a certain goddess and her interferance is never explained, so unlike Greek mythology where you get a picture of the gods as petty and self interested, here you have a meddlesome goddess working to no particular purpose. Then the storytellers forget to explain how our villain is able to destroy a race of superbeings or why he is so unable to defeat a merely human general, and their explanation of his general bitterness is far from acceptable. One more major problem occurs in the first half hour of the movie, an entirely unrealistic war scene with iffy graphics and the worst potrayal of war strategy and battle I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in a movie. Oh and why on earth or any other world would a general go face his enemy without putting on his (near mythical) armor first? This movie has no shortage of flaws.

Despite these problems though, I find myself quite enamored of The Promise, particularly in retrospect. Part of the reason for that is that the movie picks up as it goes along, becoming more intriguing with the introduction of the assassin character and the development of the protagonist's back story (plot holes and all). There is also far humor in the latter half of the movie than at the beginning, where it takes itself too seriously. If you're the kind of movie viewer who is able to relax into a movie and look past its flaws, The Promise has much to offer. Aside of the gorgeous cinematography, the acting is top notch with wonderfully evocative actors. For a fantasy geek (my name is Flint and I am a fantasy geek), some of the ideas within it are totally thrilling and impossible to let go off when you leave the cinema. That's the Promise, flawed but entertaining. It can by no means be called a good movie but it isn't all bad.

THE PROMISE was released in China last Christmas and played Berlin 2006. It is currently on release in Germany, Austria and the US. I do not know of a release date for the UK or Aus.

AKEELAH AND THE BEE - as dopey as it sounds, but not a total waste

This review is posted by guest reviewer, Tomiwa: I hate feel good movies. I always want art and storytelling, rather than Hollywood's string driven weepfests. There is no shortage of string instruments in this movie, it relies heavily on well mined formula and the last third of it is as cheese laden as the Quattro Formaggi at my local pizzeria. Nevertheless, it does have it's good points.

It's a far more thoughtful movie than something like this needs to be, dealing with race and class issues in generally more interesting ways than Hollywood usually manages. The one exception to this is a really weird Asian stereotyping in the form of Akeelah's major opponent who is made out as a little Asian robot whose father insists on perfection without humanity. It's kind of the succesful and hardworking Asian kid and parent stereotype pushed to the extreme and even some humanizing at the end of the movie does not excuse this weird intrusion into such a race conscious movie.

The little girl who plays Akeelah is really engaging and enjoyable and is also 100% less creepy than Dakota Fanning, so if you all go see this, maybe she can steal some of that little alien's roles. Angela Bassett plays a tough, black woman and Lawrence Fishburne plays Morpheus in a sweater vest (really difficult roles for them to pull off) but they are both absolutely excellent and as always, worth watching.

The movie does leave you with that "I believe I can fly" momentum and I wouldn't advise seeing it at the top of a tall building. Ultimately, that weird race thing and the excessive amounts of sap do draw the movie down, but if you're a geek who needs a fix or you need something family oriented to take your mom or kids to, you could do worse.

AKEELAH AND THE BEE was released in the US on April 28th 2006 and hits the UK on August 31st. No continental European or Australian release date to report, but I'll update the DVD release when I have it.