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E D I T O R I A L
Monday, October 16: Preparing for the Legend
Little in the way of new domestic DVD announcements, although Born to Be the King is about to reach online stores for ordering. In the USA, it's fun to see so many television advertisements for Jackie Chan's The Legend of the Drunken Master. Looks quite a bit better than the VCD I own. As far as the box office goes, I don't expect much, since it's up against the "heartwarming" Kevin Spacey/Helen Hunt/Haley Joel Osment Pay It Forward and the Brendan Fraser/Elizabeth Hurley comedy Bedazzled (both of which I'll try to check out as well). I've also seen a lot of adverts for the adaptation of the tv series Charlie's Angels. It was a wretched tv show and the trailer looks awful. On the other hand, it features Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Lui trying out some martial arts, so I might check it out when it opens in a couple of weeks (I must be losing my mind).
The current box-office champions here are the comedy Meet the Parents (Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro) and the American football drama Remember the Titans (Denzel Washington), both in their second week of release.
Neither Help!!! nor Double Tap were unqualified successes to my mind, but I enjoyed watching them both and will probably watch them again once I whittle down my "to watch" pile. It was raining last night so I started watching Okinawa Rendez-vous until I fell asleep (no reflection on the flick, it was late and I was tired). Think I'll change gears, though, and watch Iron Monkey and Swordsman II again to get in that martial-arts mood.
Last week I was definitely not feeling well and having trouble sleeping, so I came across a cable showing of A Better Tomorrow, which I hadn't seen in a while. It was full frame and dubbed in English, which made me yearn to hear the original audio (but I'm waiting for the new Anchor Bay versions coming in November). Having just seen portions of Mission: Impossible 2 about two weeks previous, it was interesting to compare the two. ABT is incredibly lean and spare. The pacing is unhurried. Action scenes are extended but not artificially. MI2 looks great but is bloated by multiple close-ups, too many slow motion shots, and glacial pacing. Hmm. Maybe John Woo has changed for the worse. To be fair, when finances and time allow, I'd like to watch his films from ABT forward (and maybe a couple before) within a short time frame and then see what I think (sounds like a fun long weekend!).
As usual, please feel free to send feedback, criticisms, etc.
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