JJ79 Blog

Under discussion:

The Wedding Party  (2005)

What happens when two people take a grudge as far as it can go? That´s the premise of "The Wedding Party," a 2005 German pseudo-comedy. We´re introduced to Mark and Sophia, the bride and groom, and their new family. Mark´s father, Hermann, is a boisterous Tony Soprano of sorts: he carries shotguns and rifles in the trunk of his car and is "accustomed" to getting his way, according to his wife. He has a "crew," consisting of at least one son and a couple strongmen. While Mark´s family is of a different variety, Sophia´s parents are more conservative (and in this story, bland).

So when the wedding dinner is cancelled due to rotten shrimp, the entire situation spirals out of control. Sophia and Hannelore (Hermann´s wife) are left behind in a bathroom at the hotel, prompting Hermann and hotel owner Franz to engage in a war. The initial displeasure is over Hermann´s insistence Franz sell the property to him (remember, he always gets his way). It gets worse as the bill is not paid, a grenade blows up a Mercedes and everyone starts brandishing weapons.

I´ll be honest: as part of the Danger After Dark line, I didn´t know what to expect when I put "The Wedding Party" into my DVD player. Would it be wildly offbeat like "Strange Circus" or bloodily fascinating like "Evil"? Based on the trailers, I was hopeful for a mild comedy with an explosion or two thrown in for good measure. What I got was 92 of the funniest minutes, in a dark way, I´d seen this year. This isn´t Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell funny; this is, in a lot of ways, more sophisticated, more adult humor without the curse words.

The beauty of this film, based on a comic strip, is every event is grounded in reality. These aren´t necessarily bad people; they just refuse to be shown up by anybody. Franz has his pride to maintain, not only in front of the other hotel patrons who witness Hermann´s outburst, but also to his staff. Despite efforts of giving all of the supporting players enough to do (the married man and the hooker, a seemingly gay cook who is scared of the dark, a bickering couple who gets locked in a basement), they are really only present to flesh out the proceedings with bodies.

And that´s okay because the focus is on Franz and Hermann as it should be. This is their story, so much so even Mark and Sophia get relegated to the background most of the time. Hermann pulls out a gun and destroys the telephone poles after Franz locks the gate behind the group. Franz implores two bikers to ride for help; Hermann catches them and shoves them in the basement, too. At each turn, the two men up the ante. At first, it´s all relatively simple acts, but it gets deadly serious when Granddad finds a supposedly dead grenade and blows up the aforementioned Mercedes.

It´s a moment of pure hilarity, this old man walking down the country road wearing a World War II style helmet and flack jacket. When he pulls out the explosive and the son on guard duty recoils, we do the same, smirking at the same time. In films like this, people may get hurt or bleed, but they don´t die. We know the grenade will be used to some comedic effect and, true to form, the pin is pulled and there is a mad dash to get rid of it. Later, this entire episode comes back in a near repeat.

Early on, there is a short sequence following the wedding ceremony which tells us everything we need to know about Hermann and the rest of the film. While setting up the family wedding photo, Hermann is directing everyone to their place while also preparing the camera. In normal families, it would be standard practice for the bride and groom to take center stage; in this family, the father is the last into the picture…and he interjects himself front and center. This one shot, of this wide gentleman effectively blocking out other people, is Hermann´s personality in a nutshell: he has to be the center of attention, be right and everyone had better love him for it.

Concurrent with this, a driver sleeps…with a fly darting in and out of his mouth. After a short struggle, the driver closes his mouth and promptly swallows the insect. Only to jump out of the car, making a scene that upstages Hermann. As with the grenade, we know what is coming, but our fore knowledge doesn´t hinder the joke, it helps it.

Lest I paint a flawless picture of this film, there are a couple areas for improvement. I already mentioned one of the major ones, the supporting characters. Simple, they don´t really have any personalities expect broad characterizations. There are stories and subplots to be mined for them. At one point, while in a hotel bedroom, Hannelore tells Sophia she can´t take Hermann anymore. We assume she can´t take the type of behavior on display. When the incident is over, does she stay with Hermann or does she leave? The hooker and the married man, who have their own subplot, disappear off the screen far too quickly. What happens with his Mercedes? Does his wife ever find out about the hooker or his "I´m at a conference" lie? How about the doctor and her husband who are "captured" by Hermann? I think we´re supposed to imply everyone ends the standoff no worse for the wear, but it´s a cop out. If the audience is supposed to invest 90 minutes in characters and plot, the least the script can do is pay off the storylines. To do anything else is a violation of the filmmaker-viewer contract.

The minute Franz closes the gate behind the wedding party and who was left behind dawns on Hermann and Mark, why do they stop short at the gate? Back up, get a full head of steam and ram it down. This is before any weapons are fired; Hermann couldn´t have known with any certainty Franz kept a shotgun under his bed. It´s the one plot gaffe that stuck out more than any other. As with most leaps in logic, had Hermann knocked down the gate, the film would have been over rather quickly.

All that being said, "The Wedding Party" is a very nice surprise, not to mention change of pace. This never could have been an American comedy because of our definition of the genre. Any comedy not played broadly or with enough sex jokes and crude humor to appease the teenagers doesn´t have a shot in hell of succeeding. This adaptation has its share of curses, but the dialogue never dovetails into the embarrassing. True to life and chuckle worthy, even if some of the laughs are telegraphed.

VIDEO:
The 1.85:1 (16:9 enhanced) picture is a wonder to behold. For a foreign film unlikely to gain many fans stateside, what TLA has done is impressive. There are no problems of note with the transfer; for whatever reason, though, it has a "foreign" look to it. The "foreign" look is evident in nearly every non-American film. It is the film appearing just slightly over-exposed which shouts its origin to the audience. Some slight grain is on the screen, but it never detracts from the action. One thing I wanted to mention are the night scenes at the end of the film. Nothing wrong with them from a technical sense, but the sequence just looks too dark for the audience (or the characters) to clearly see what is happening.

AUDIO:
On the audio side, two German language tracks are available: both 5.1 and 2.0. Because the audio is spread across five speakers, the soundtrack comes across as being less dynamic than anything from the 2.0 side. That being said, they both sound really good, allowing the sound effects (like the exploding car) to come through unhampered. Even without the benefit of not understanding the German language, the dialogue is never drowned out or hard to hear. All things considered, choose the 2.0 track.

EXTRAS:
Extras wise, there isn´t much here. A collection of trailers for other TLA titles in the Danger After Dark series range from this movie´s theatrical trailer (1:56) to the already release "Evil" (1:04) and "Strange Circus" (2:04) and the upcoming "Next Door" (1:54). There´s also a promo for the Danger After Dark box set (1:20).

PARTING THOUGHTS:
With solid performances from the entire cast, and two standouts in Rohde and Uwe Ochsenknecht as Franz, as well as well-timed spurts of comedy, "The Wedding Party" gets an unequivocal recommendation. Some leaps in the story structure might leave fans upset but in the end the side characters don´t matter to the main plot. This is Hermann and Franz´s story, a portrait of two men butting heads, a story of hubris and pride and, ultimately, of giving just enough to get what they want.

Under discussion:

Shrek the Third  (2007)

Almost without fail, the third installment in any movie series falls short of its predecessors. Whereas part I defines the world the characters live in and part II spirals to dizzyingly high heights, the third can´t help but be anything but a let down. Look no farther than this summer´s "Spider-Man" installment. Or any franchise in history: "Return of the Jedi" was inferior to Episodes IV and V; "Jaws 3" was just a disaster; "Star Trek III," while the middle of a three act story, found itself lower in quality than either of its bookends; "Die Hard 3," "Superman 3"…the weakest in their franchises to that point.

Which is what makes "Shrek the Third" all the more baffling. Here is a character beloved by children and their parents, full of snarky jabs at previous animated films, yet accessible to the entire family. When the first "Shrek" film hit the scene in 2001, it was a breath of fresh air and helped usher in a new era of animated films. In 2004, with "Shrek 2," more characters and asides were added to the universe of Far Far Away. But with the newest installment, the magic, the awe, is missing from the screen.

When Princess Fiona´s father dies, he leaves the throne of Far Far Away to his daughter and her husband, he titular ogre. But Shrek wants nothing to do with it. He longs to return to his swamp, far far away from his glare of the palace. So when it is revealed there is a cousin next in line to the throne (Arthur, as in King Arthur…and the Knights of the Roundtable…Sir Lancelot…Merlin the Magician…), Shrek, Donkey and Puss in Boots set out to find the boy. While they´re gone, Prince Charming (the son of Number 2´s villain The Fairy Godmother) takes over the kingdom with the help of a rogues gallery of fairy tale baddies. Shrek and his crew must reclaim Far Far Away for the magical creatures while teaching Arthur he can be a king.

"Shrek the Third" is an uneven mishmash of humor and adult themes, more characters than anyone can possibly recount and none of the fun quotient of either of the first two films. The problem rests solely in the execution of this tale of revenge and death. This film is darker, both in tone and in look, than either of the other two. Charming morphs from the goofball we previously saw into someone who is out for vengeance, presumably for his mother´s fate. As he recruits his rogues gallery including Captain Hook, what look to be castoffs from Treebeard´s people in "Lord of the Rings," one of Cinderella´s ugly stepsisters, Snow White´s wicked stepmother, he makes sure to list how they have each been hurt by the protagonist in their respective stories. Do any of us really need this history lesson to understand everyone´s motivations? Doubtful, based on the audience "Shrek the Third" is aimed at.

It gets even worse with the ostensible good guys. After Charming takes over, Fiona leads a group of princesses (her mother, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel) through the castle´s tunnels only to be double crossed by one of their group. The others constantly bicker as if they were back in princess high school. Then in a wildly psychotic moment of girl power, Mother knocks down two brick walls using her head and Snow White turns into a female version of Tarzan, commanding a legion of birds and other forest animals against the invaders. With the rest of the fairy tale folks remaining at least halfway true to the personae, what in the world happened here? It screams of the writers trying to throw everything into the movie they could think of in case a fourth film wasn´t given the green light. (Which t has been, for the record.)

There are no signature moments in this film as there were in the previous two. Remember Smash mouth´s "Allstar" during the introduction of Shrek? Or "Holding Out for a Hero" from the finale of the second? Any moment remotely close to those is missing from this movie. Instead, we´re given heavy handed moralizing from Shrek about Arthur fulfilling his responsibility, moralizing to Shrek about the virtues of being a father and a wholly action-free coda on a theatrical stage.

This is really a tale of two films. The first half, which is just as laugh-filled as either of the previous entries, starts the film in the right direction. A simple montage of Shrek and Fiona´s disasters filling in for the king and queen is sidesplitting: he destroys a new boat instead of christening it and a banquet hall is set on fire, among others. Absolutely uproarious gags when Fiona tries to tell Shrek she´s pregnant and the accompanying discussion about how that happens set the stage for a worthy ending.

But it´s not to be. Around the time Merlin the Magician comes into the picture, the jokes become forced and the story seems to be reaching for additional material to pad the running time. The aforementioned girl power of the princesses, for instance, is jaw-droopingly out of place and lends to the downfall of the second half.

One particular scene I wanted to specifically mention is the death of the frog king near the start of the film. With his wife, Fiona, Shrek, Puss and Donkey gathered around a min-lake with lily pads, the king proceeds to die not once, not twice but three different times. It´s a gag that runs on far too long and is perplexing in the treatment of death. Yes, this is a children´s movie and humor is needed to keep the audience happy, though a fly jumping out of the frog´s mouth and landing on his eye is distasteful to say the least. It´s not funny in the least.

The voice talent is the one portion of the film which doesn´t disappoint. Everyone from the "Shrek 2" returns: Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Julie Andrews, John Cleese (to name a few). And at least one major name is added to the voice cast: the much-heralded Justin Timberlake as Arthur-or Artie, whichever you prefer. It´s not that the returning voices are the be-all of animation voice over work; in a movie full of new characters and a departure from the series, the return of all the participants is the draw.

Coasting on the goodwill of the previous two entries and the marketing push toward the kids, "Shrek the Third" will be a bigger success than it has any right to be. DreamWorks has taken a decidedly adult direction for this story, which is fine except they forget the appeal is to both kids and their parents. What will this approach hold for movie #4? Only time will tell.

"Shrek the Third" (which I´ve resisted calling "Shrek 3" for this entire review) rates a 6 on the scale of 1 to 10. It´s main problem is the competition for itself the series has spawned. It tries to compete with those other films as opposed to staying true to the premise of the series.

Under discussion:

El Calentito  (2005)

The absolute worst thing I can say about "El Calentito" is it takes roughly 45 minutes to get to the pivotal plot development the story hinges on: the February 23, 1981, failed Spanish coup d´etat led by Antonio Tejero. On that day (also known as 23-F for the date), the Spanish Congress of Deputies was held hostage for 18 hours by Tejero; ultimately, no one was hurt and the coup was a failure. But enough history, especially since "El Calentito" requires the viewer to know this piece of Spanish history to fully understand the film, though never gives the information itself.

Regardless of what issue was at the center of the coup, the central theme of this film is freedom. Freedom to be who you are in whatever flavor you decide to be; freedom to do as you want without answering to anybody; freedom from fear and tyranny. And, once the production reaches it´s halfway mark, those themes become obvious. It´s the set up to the story which tends to grind on with no real aim in mind.

Sara is stuck in a conservative household where her mother rules with an iron fist. She lies to go out to a bar, the Calentito, to meet her boyfriend for, as her mother terms the act, "it." When she finds him in the arms (and pants) of another girl, Sara finds herself in the bed of a lesbian rocker, Carmen. Though she is straight, Sara is enchanted by the rock band The Suix and becomes their third member. On the night of their major record gig, the coup takes place, throwing everything the family of transsexuals, bisexuals, homosexuals and other malcontents holds dear into the path of a speeding train.

"El Calentito" nearly hits the audience over their collective head making its point about the value of freedom and the fear associated with taking it away. Even in the haven for this group of characters-the Calentito-the threat of that freedom being taken away is omnipresent during the coup. The most fascinating aspect of the film isn´t that it combines a real life event with fictional people to great effect; it´s how many different types of freedom are expressed in a hair under 90 minutes.

Of course, there is sexual freedom and gender identity freedom. There´s personal travel freedom and the freedom to do what you want despite the people who might tell you not to. There´s also the freedom to choose the way you relate to another person. The people in favor of the coup, like the old couple who live above the bar, even take their freedom of speech for granted as they first harass transsexual owner Antonia and then threaten the patrons with a loaded gun. One of the new rules broadcast over the airwaves by Tejero and given prominence in the film is where citizens can go and who they can go with. Groups must be limited to four people; no more than two can walk on the street together; and so on.

Compare his dictums with Sara´s mother, who bellows at the top of her lungs for the kids to join the family for dinner or demands Sara´s younger sister give up her passion for football (soccer in America) because girls don´t like the sport. As we see from the opening moments of the film, she is the dictator in the house, while the father sits idly by, presumably in order to keep from fighting with his wife. Taken deeper, she is a stand-in for Tejero, while the seemingly deposed king of Spain resembles Sara´s father. Only when they´ve both had enough does either of them stand up and demand to be counted.

"El Calentito" is a slow build in that we´re allowed to know the participants and the world they live in before the drama begins. Yes, we are thrown into the restrictive yet free household Sara lives in with an opening sequence which talks about blow jobs while showing Mom at her demanding worst. It certainly sets the stage for the film, but it just feels like it´s biding time until story structure warrants the coup to be introduced. In the meantime, though, the relationship between punk rocker Leo, lesbian Carmen and Sara is allowed to grow and mature from a need-Sara takes over for a former band member who has left-into a want-especially considering what Sara gives up to join the band fulltime for the gig.

Ah, yes, the gig. The event the entire film revolves around…except, of course, the coup. In order to secure their recording contract, the girls agree to play a live set in front of the music company exec. Easy, right? Furthering the freedom theme, Leo and Carmen clash over which songs to sing: one says they need to perform only "safe" music while the other wants to be herself. For Spain of 1981, this is a fascinating conversation if only because they never make the connection between their fight and the coup.

Every character and subplot furthers the central idea of freedom, which isn´t something many films do in our culture. Antonia, formerly Antonio, is berated constantly by neighbors telling her what a freak she is. Her own son, who has called her "Dad" for years, finally breaks free of societal norms.

Only two problems rear their heads in the film. The first, and biggest, is the lack of background material on the coup. Sure, the script does hit us over the head with the freedom theme every chance it gets and we should be able to draw the parallels instantly. However, for foreign audiences who weren´t alive in 1981 and don´t know about Tejero or Franco, a verbal reference to how the country used to be would have been helpful. Still, it is enough to know freedoms are being taken away from the people and some of them were scared.

The other problem, as already stated, is the coup doesn´t happen until halfway through the production. By the time the first radio reports come in, the audience is on the brink of not caring about the situation anymore. Knowing these people face the prospect of their lives being turned upside down and becoming not just societal outcasts, but also illegals in their own country, is a terrifying thought. On the flip side, the audience wouldn´t be emotionally invested in Sara, Leo, Antonia or anyone else. And that emotional investment is crucial to experience the fear running through every trip to the bar door on the night of the coup. We constantly expect the door to open, obstructed by a wall, and secret police of some kind to barrel in.

Distilled down to its barest threads, "El Calentito" is about rebellion, some of which is successful and some that isn´t. Sara´s journey as a girl yearning to do what she feels she needs to do parallels Spain´s lurching into democracy. Both are fraught with peril and imminent disaster, yet the primary players carry on, doing what they feel they need to do.

VIDEO:
This is a gorgeous transfer, hands down one of the best things to come out of TLA Releasing. The only drawback is the lack of anamorphic enhancement. Presented in a 1.85:1 letterbox widescreen format, "El Calentito" jumps off the screen, combining dank blackish-greens of the bar with attention grabbing hues of red, yellow and green. This turns out to be one of the cleanest transfers out there, especially considering the lineage of the production. Whether a by-product of the look of the film or my own subconscious, I felt as though I inhabited this version of Madrid as much as Leo, Carmen and Sara do.

AUDIO:
There is just as much to brag about with the audio presentation on the disc. Only a 2.0 Spanish track is available, yet it never sounds like "just" stereo. It´s full and alive, bringing the bar experience home for the viewer. More than that, though, it´s clean. No hissing or auditory artifacts muddy up what we´re hearing, despite not understanding it. As expected, there is an English subtitle track-which doesn´t have to be manually selected, nor can it be turned off-with only one problem: near the end of the film, a brief conversation between Sara and her little sister has a line appear and disappear on screen in the blink of an eye. Judging by the onscreen action, we know what was said; still, this is a minor goof in the subtitles.

EXTRAS:
I´d have liked to see as much thought and care go into the extras as went into the video and audio, but as they say, you can´t have everything. There is a Photo Gallery consisting of a dozen or so photos with a manual advance option. An interesting note here: logo for the film (a ticket stub with the name "El Calentito" on it) obscures the photos on every single page. It resides on the lower right hand corner for some unknown reason.

Next up is a music video for one of the bands songs, which plays more like an MTV promotional video than a video for any real band. The music is interspersed with short clips from the movie and run for a shade under four minutes. A special bonus: the lyrics are subtitled.

Last up are a collection of trailers. This film receives its original trailer, complete with subtitles; other TLA releases "Another Gay Movie" and "20 Centimeters" appear as well as the upcoming theatrical release "Boy Culture."

PARTING THOUGHTS:
Our dancing sucks
Our singing´s even worse
Our dancing sucks
And we can´t stay in tune
And we can´t even speak
But we just don´t care

Sample lyrics from The Siux demonstrate in six lines what I´ve tried to convey in two pages: the rebellious nature of the underground culture and the fear instilled in them when freedom is taken away, even for a little while. Filled with soul bearing performances as well as a timely message, "El Calentito" isn´t the pinnacle of film making, but it comes damn close.