thriller

Chasing Alliecat

barbara — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

In this action-packed thriller written for a young adult audience, author Rebecca Fjelland Davis brings multiple themes to the forefront, places them on the table and gets dirty—dirty as in riding mountain bikes in the woods of a small town and scarily getting involved with some unsavory characters in the wilds of northern Minnesota. With a plot interwoven with themes of death, friendship, family, and abuse, this novel provokes your senses and makes it all worthwhile. At the end of the novel, you hope for a sequel, because you want to know what is going to happen next for the well-drawn characters.

Sixteen-year old protagonist Sadie Lester arrives to stay with her aunt and uncle's home in the woods for the summer and expects the worst. Hoping to escape from her eternally fretting aunt and her wacky uncle, Sadie takes her bike out for a spin and meets Allison Baker (known as Alliecat). Alliecat appears a bit rough around the edges, but she eagerly invites Sadie to ride with her and to enter a mountain bike competition upcoming in the area. She also keeps her life mysteriously guarded; this curious character keeps the the story flowing. Soon after becoming friends the two girls, along with Sadie's cousin Joe, come upon a nearly dead body in the woods. Uncharacteristically, Alliecat disappears, leaving both Sadie and Joe to face new worries.

Along with her complex handling of the plot, Davis also lends her experience as a serious bicyclist to the novel. References to contemporary cyclists and technical bicycle machinery dot the surface of the novel as the story unfolds. The camaraderie of the bicycling community offers a support system for the main characters as they experience fear in dealing with difficult situations.

This story keeps the reader guessing. The mystery unfolds as the characters mindfully try to figure out what is going on and how to protect themselves. Multiple themes, many of them somewhat mature (including death, relationships, and abuse), become a little overwhelming, but the author delivers enough information to tie up loose ends as well as to insert her ideas of the young peoples' thoughts and needs to make the story complete.

Winner of the honorable mention in the Loft Award for Children's Literature/Older Children, Chasing Alliecat is quite an accomplishment. Davis opens up an amazing door of adventure.

Written by: Carolyn Espe, March 23rd 2011

Trapped

mandy — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Michael Northrop

Scholastic Press

School is let out early because of a massive blizzard. Everyone is supposed to get home before the weather gets worse. But Scotty Weems and his friends decide to stay after for a couple hours to work on a shop project, figuring that one of their parents will be able to pick them up on the way home from work. This turns out to be a really bad (and really deadly) decision. Along with several other students and one teacher, they are trapped in the school by the snow. And it keeps coming. And coming.

It doesn’t take long before this becomes a survival story. The students must grow increasingly resourceful after their teacher leaves for help and never returns. They lose power, meaning no light or heat, and the food is locked away behind the cafeteria doors. As the snow continues piling up outside, the teens are forced to question whether they’ll ever make it out, and what will be left for them if they do.

Trapped has been compared to The Breakfast Club because the characters, like those in the classic movie, come from diverse backgrounds, initially knowing little about each other. They form snap judgments based on reputations and rumors. However, they must learn a little more about each other and work together if they ever want to make it out alive.

Michael Northrop’s Trapped is a chilling thriller that makes a perfect winter read so long as you enjoy being terrified. I read it while the snow was coming down outside, and my paranoia made the book all the better. At least while the school’s roof was shuddering from the weight of the snow, I could be curled up on my couch under several blankets drinking hot chocolate.

I would like to give a huge thumbs up to the design team for an amazing cover, and awesome images throughout the book that show the snow getting higher and higher at the start of each chapter. I assume that the final text will resemble the ARC and keep these visual elements intact.

Beyond that, Scotty Weems is an engaging, conversational narrator who I think even reluctant readers will find appealing. His simple and up-front language makes this book easy to breeze through in an evening. He comes across as a realistic teen guy. (I keep wanting to say “he’s a real boy” in Pinocchio’s voice.) This also means that he is often immature, and his language is sprinkled with “likes” and “uhs,” which didn’t bother me, but may annoy some readers.

I loved every page of Trapped, except for the very last one. I didn’t want it to end and I would have preferred more resolution and closure. I’m a needy reader; I want answers!! In all seriousness, though, this was an excellent book that surprised me by just how dark it got. I’ve heard that Northrop’s other book, Gentlemen, is similarly dark and gritty, so I’m looking forward to reading that as well.

Cross-posted at Reclusive Bibliophile

Written by: Melanie Goodman, February 17th 2011

No One Killed Jessica

mandy — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Rajkumar Gupta

UTV Motion Pictures

In 1999 model/waitress Jessica Lall refused to serve drinks to a rowdy man in a crowded bar, who then shot her point blank in a fit of rage. That man turned out to be the son of an influential politician, but with 300 witnesses it seemed like a straightforward case. However, in an unfortunate example of the rot in the judicial system and rampant corruption, all the witnesses were either threatened or paid off, and the evidence was tampered with, leading to the release of the killer. No One Killed Jessica by Rajkumar Gupta follows the initial courtroom campaign relentlessly pursued by Jessica’s sister, Sabrina (Vidya Balan), and then the news media battle for the reopening of the case led by fictionalized reporter Meera (Rani Mukherji).

No One Killed Jessica remains obsessively loyal to the central plot of the real events; the film is about the murder case and nothing else. There are no romantic tracks snuck into the narrative, no diversions, and no subplots. Every scene is in some way connected to the main story, and this loyalty becomes the film’s greatest strength. For just over two hours, Gupta sucks you into the minute details of the case and, even if you know how it all turns out, the film makes you feel disgust for the guilty parties and root for justice. The bigger message here is the immense power of a democratic movement leading to a change in the system. As Meera questions at one point, “What would happen if power is truly given to the ordinary man?”

The structure of the film is intriguing. The two protagonists hardly have any screen time together and there is a reason for it. The first half of the film is focused more on Sabrina and her fight to ensure a solid case against the accused, Manu Sharma. Meera’s life runs parallel to provide a wider news context of the time (i.e., Kargil war, Indian Airlines flight hijacking), but she doesn’t really have a role to play in the Jessica case at that stage. The first half also moves at a somewhat slow pace, fitting in well with the simpleton personality of Sabrina’s character. The second half then sprints into more sensational and glamorized action where Meera comes to the forefront and takes on the cause. Sabrina’s role then diminishes until the latter parts, and the very moving climax.

Mukherji’s portrayal of Meera is by far the more interesting character, whereas Balan’s Sabrina becomes so understated that she comes off as dull. The most memorable performance, however, is by newcomer Myra Karn who plays Jessica. She is simply a revelation. She injects such charm and vivaciousness into Jessica that you instantly fall for her.

Hindi cinema has traditionally had a very overbearing approach to advocating social change. With No One Killed Jessica, Gupta walks a fine line between making a hard-hitting realistic film and a commercial political thriller. As a result, he tends to slip on a few occasions. However, considering that every detail of the case is already so well known, Gupta delivers his retelling in such an engaging manner that you get pulled into the chaos of the moment. No One Killed Jessica is a brave film that picks a battle and fights it until the end. It’s not just a promising start to the films of 2011, but with all the corruption scandals plaguing India these days, the timing seems even more appropriate.

Read the full review at The NRI

Written by: Pulkit Datta, February 1st 2011

Black Swan

mandy — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Fox Searchlight

The hype had me prepared for Black Swan to be a disturbing and gory movie. But the truth of it is this: even if you’re squeamish, like me, there’s nothing in the film you can’t look at… out of context.

Context is the name of the game for director Darren Aronofsky, in this and his previous films. Aronofsky gives viewers rich, often confusing imagery—the back of someone’s head, for instance; a favorite shot he's borrowed from Hitchcock, Van Sant, and others—and then leaves it up to our minds to interpret his meaning. Example: a physical wound means one thing if it’s accidentally caused, another if it’s created by an external person, and still something else if self-inflicted. But if you only see the wound without its frame of reference, it means nothing beyond blood and guts.

Some viewers find this equivocating pretentious and sadistic, while others enjoy the challenge. With Black Swan, Aronofsky has achieved the ultimate cinematic ambiguity: his film will have us talking about it for years, trying to make heads or tails of what’s really going on with Nina the ballerina (Natalie Portman).

The trailer gives us the narrative framework (no spoilers ahead): Nina is a dedicated dancer who assumes the lead role in Swan Lake, only to end up in torment as she tries to shed her virginal white swan persona in favor of the darker, sensual black swan. Are her demons real or imagined? Can she play both parts, good and evil? Will she dance herself to death, or find fame and glory? Black Swan is a thriller racing to answer these questions. But saying it’s a movie about Swan Lake, or even about ballet in general, is like saying that Swan Lake is about birds.

When the curtain came down, so to speak, I wasn’t disturbed or scared. Instead, I felt mildly exhilarated and happy to go home to a foot massage from my husband. Later that night, however, I tossed and turned to terrifying dreams. I saw Nina’s mother’s icy stare. I dreamed of broken, twisted limbs and skin tearing from my body. The next morning, I received an email from a girlfriend with whom I’d seen the film: she claimed to be having “out of body sensations." What happened to us? How could we have endured viewing the film itself with no terror, only to wind up feeling dizzy and insecure later on? But that’s probably the point, right?

Black Swan transcends its obvious message of self-sacrifice for the sake of art and makes a wider statement about sexuality: it points out that women are intraculturally conditioned to sacrifice their own pleasure in favor of male gratification. We encourage and adopt a meme of female frigidity, forcing young girls to think of their virginity as something fragile, even breakable. We set up an expectation in young women that virginity and subsequent self-sacrifice can result in the “perfect” first time. (That’s according to me. You want a different conclusion? Ask a different critic.)

A review by Danusha Goska on the Internet Movie Database suggests Black Swan “tells us that women are fragile and neurotic and if they do anything remarkable it makes them crazy.” I went looking for this kind of reaction, and I liked finding that viewers are recognizing misogyny in the film. But to say that the filmmakers are sexists is inaccurate; in actuality, they’re pointing to existing rigid demands for women to model ourselves after feminine archetypes. True, Portman and costar Mila Kunis did reportedly lose an enormous amount of weight for their roles as skinny, somewhat masochistic dancers (about 20 lbs. each off already tiny bodies). But the question is: why are ballet dancers skinny, not why are actresses who play ballet dancers skinny?

One of the reasons I braved the supposed gore was because I wanted to gawk at pin thin bodies on screen. Instead of assuming an air of superiority to this trend, however, I found myself envying their ability to achieve a desired aesthetic. (Talk about social and cultural memes: women are supposed to be frigid and skinny, it would seem. And even this feminist, with all of her bravado, can’t get rid of a desire to be outwardly beautiful and adored.)

Okay, now comes the part when I tell you whether or not I recommend the film. I do. Black Swan is beautiful to look at and, at times, campy fun, but only fun for those who don’t mind a few days of psychological indigestion for which there may be no effective antacid.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, January 8th 2011

Pune Highway (11/11/2010)

mandy — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Directed by Rahul Da Cunha

Watermans Theatre

London, England

During my childhood, visits to India were largely spent travelling. A lot of this involved time on the infamous GT Road, a dry scaly snake taking us wherever we wanted to go. Aside from the beauty of fields either side, there was always the fear of danger lurking nearby. Visiting these roads was always interesting—but you knew they had the potential to harbour deadly forces. Whenever something happened, people would react wildly. The road was both a blessing and a curse, progressive in its promise, but with a lot to hide.

Whenever an incident on happened we looked on in wonder, not really knowing protocol. Minor scuffles in traffic would result in typical rambunctious arguments which proved entertaining for some—but larger incidents were a different matter. A cyclist thrown off his bike, for example, would result in a series of complexities not only for the culprit but also for spectators. Typically, they’d refrain from contacting the authorities, afraid of opening a can of worms.

One macabre incident, featured in the Times of India, inspired Rahul Da Cunha to create the play Pune Highway. Described as a "dark comedy thriller and a brutal exposition of friendship," Pune Highway is currently showing at Watermans Theatre in West London for a limited time. Rage Productions launched the play in Bombay to much critical acclaim.

On first seeing Pune Highway last night, I found it a raw and absorbing delight. With a sombre set and atmospheric lighting, the play revolves around three friends who have just witnessed the death of a fourth. As we open to a dank hotel room beside Pune Highway, three Bombay men are in turmoil, uncertain as to what their next actions are going to be.

It’s five in the morning, but no one is sleeping. The night before they were all subject to terrible events: a corpse lay on the road before them, but on closer inspection, they realised that it was not a corpse at all. Bags of rice had been laid out, designed to fool them. On realisation that they’ve been had, one of the party was attacked whilst the others fled.

While watching this play, I was quickly taken back to my own experiences of quiet Indian hotels. We’d usually rock up in a roadside three-star perched on the corner of a main highway hoping for the best. Usually it’s not the hotels themselves, but the occupants that make them such eerie places. I’m often reminded of Industrial expansion in America and Hitchcock’s Psycho. Our three characters are constantly on edge; they’re middle class men from Bombay: one with a former coke habit, another is having an extra-marital affair, and the third is wrestling with his conscience and a stammer. As they bicker and reminisce amongst themselves, things begin to get a little twisted as certain truths are revealed.

Rajit Kapur (Pramod), Ashwin Mushran (Vishnu), and Bugs Bhargava Krishna (Nicholas) have an excellent believable chemistry between them. You’d think they easily shared a childhood or a long personal history. Their suspicious waiter for the evening (Shankar Sachdev) makes regular appearances on the scene and speaks a type of street slang synonymous with his film roles. Unfortunately, the Hindi interludes are lost on some members of the London cosmopolitan audience.

Yamini Namjoshi, who plays Mona, relieves some of the tension with her spirited performance. Added to her character is a certain mystery that makes you realise all the characters in this play are truly multidimensional. As such, the play proves itself a strong candidate of the Problem Play genre. Neither too comedic nor melodramatic, it moves successfully through a gripping plot.

Overall, Pune Highway is a well woven mystery with little to fault it. The play’s ultimate success is that it leaves you wondering about the incident that inspired it: how many horrors have we actually seen on the major roads that network India? And what does our growing apathy and fear tell us about how we’re growing as a nation?

Pune Highway runs for a limited time in London before moving to New York and Washington, D.C. in June 2011.

Cross-posted at The NRI

Written by: Sandeep Sandhu, November 24th 2010

Fair Game

mandy — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Directed by Doug Liman

River Road Entertainment

In a moment of frustration toward the beginning of Doug Liman’s Fair Game, Valerie Plame points out the flaws in an overzealous CIA analyst’s interpretation of data. “Somebody had to ask the question,” says a collected Plame as she reveals evidence that shatters to pieces one of the popular arguments for invading Iraq. This moment of clarity is a microcosm for the film’s overall message and for the whole country’s frustration at an administration that lead a nation astray by providing answers before taking time to ask the questions. Americans were mislead, lied to, and ruled by fear during the years under the Bush administration and no clearer evidence may exist than the mistreatment of CIA-agent Valerie Plame.

Fair Game is based on the true story of Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) and her husband Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) who get caught up in a chaotic and uncertain post-9/11 government. Plame works undercover for the CIA investigating Middle Eastern intelligence and has been specially tasked with finding evidence of nuclear weapons manufacturing. Plame’s husband Joe Wilson is a former Ambassador to Gabon and has experience in Africa so the agency asks him to investigate whether an illegal trade of yellow cake Uranium has occurred from Niger to Iraq. When Wilson returns with no evidence and the opinion that such a trade never occurred, he is essentially ignored by the administration as the original piece of evidence is used by President Bush in his State of the Union as a reason to invade Iraq. This infuriates Wilson and inspires him to write an article for the New York Times entitled “What I Didn’t Find in Iraq.”

The article causes a stir in the Bush Administration and starts a search for a controversy to temporarily distract the country and discredit Wilson. This results in Scooter Libby revealing Valerie Plame’s identity to the press, which destroys all of her covert operations, causes her to lose her job and any government connections, and results in the disappearance of several Iraqi scientists that Plame was helping escape Saddam’s regime. It also causes a splinter in Plame and Wilson’s relationship as they struggle to maintain a sense of familial oneness in the midst of national turmoil.

The script combined with Naomi Watts' fiery persona shows Valerie Plame to be a very capable spy, which discounts many of the theories that Plame was an unimportant sideshow within the CIA. Liman takes no qualms in vilifying the Bush Administration by using stock footage of Bush and Cheney’s speeches edited to ominous music and shocked reaction shots. Liman makes a film for the current generation and fully expects his audience to have some background information about the events. The narrative is tightly scripted and fast moving which gives the simultaneous pleasure of a thrilling spectacle and an intellectually challenging political mystery.

Watts and Penn are fantastic in two very different leading turns. Penn’s Wilson exists at more varying emotional extremes as his enormous ego leads him to wear his emotions on his sleeve. Watts is more reserved and restrained in one of her better performances that acts as a perfect balance to Penn. There is also a fantastic supporting turn from the legendary Sam Shepard as Plame’s broken, advice giving father.

The one place the film does not succeed as efficiently is in the resolution of the conflicting relationship between Wilson and Plame. Liman seems to speed up their conclusion in order to get to the film’s final call to action. That call to action is an important one, however.

Read full review at Film Misery

Written by: Alex Carlson, November 10th 2010

Law of Attraction

admin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Allison Leotta

Touchstone Books

As far as my taste in reading material goes, I tend to avoid genre books, particularly cookie cutter thrillers and mysteries as many most often lack originality, societal observation, and genuine writing skill. Alison Leotta’s novel Law of Attraction, however, manages to be the exception to the rule, creating a mystery that adheres to the genre standards but also manages to transcend them through tackling the heavy hitting topics of domestic abuse and power struggles within heterosexual relationships.

The novel’s protagonist Anna is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington DC; many of the cases that come across her desk are domestic violence cases in which she observes women suffering through the cycle of abuse at the hands of their husbands and boyfriends. Anna seems to identify readily with the women she helps, and through a series of flashbacks it is slowly revealed that Anna’s own mother was a victim of domestic violence.

Among her cases is Laprea, a woman who seeks legal help to escape abuse at the hands of her boyfriend D’marco, only to continually drop the charges and let him into her life. The day after Valentine’s Day, a bloody Laprea enters Anna office seeking to press charges, sure that this time she is done with D’marco. At the same time, Anna also reconnects with Nick, a former law school classmate who has long been holding a torch for Anna. Sparks fly between the two until it is revealed that Nick is D’marco’s lawyer. Things get messy when Anna begins an impassioned relationship with Nick. While their relationship initially seems to be an idyllic one, Nick is quickly shown to be a man of questionable character when he cajoles Laprea to change her testimony and claim D’marco’s innocence. Things take a turn for the worse when shortly after Nick’s release Laprea’s bloody body is found in a trash bag.

While Law of Attraction has all the ingredients of a typical genre thriller, it somewhat transcends the genre. Leotta’s obvious writing skill is apparent and the characters and scenes are more richly developed than is commonly seen in other thrillers. Many of the legal details and scenarios throughout the course of the book ring true, which can be credited to Leotta’s employment as a federal sex crimes prosecutor. The novel’s exploration of domestic violence and the psychological implications of it are also handled well by Leotta. Much like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this subject matter elevates the novel as it provides valid societal observation and insight, often into the inequalities that frequently exist in heterosexual relationships.

While Law of Attraction may be more a fun thriller than a substantial work of literary merit, it is nonetheless a joy to read. Those readers who often pass over the thriller genre may find Law of Attraction to be more cerebrally stimulating.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, October 12th 2010

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

mandy — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Oliver Stone

20th Century Fox

I knew when I bought my ticket that Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps would not be a feminist film. I had an idea of the storyline: Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) returns for Oliver Stone’s modern depiction of the beginnings of the current economic crisis, told through the eyes of Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a young ambitious businessman, and his girlfriend Winnie (Carey Mulligan), Gekko’s daughter. I entered the theater prepared for a film starring and made for men.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a hyper-masculine telling of extremely wealthy business executives engaged in dangerous and unethical games with each other. Apart from the lack of strong female characters, which I would expect in a “business thriller” film, there are parts of the movie that betray a more pervasive and insidious destruction of women. The film’s treatment of Winnie made my jaw drop on several occasions—not only because of the harsh ways she was manipulated by other characters but also by the sheer banality of this kind of treatment. Little energy is spent questioning the ways Jake hurts her, and Winnie's routine mistreatment normalizes such behavior.

In a key moment, Jake deceives Winnie into handing over her hefty fortune to his pet project, all the while assuring her that this means she will be “doing something with her life." Jake implies that her actions are only worthwhile if done in support of his business goals, not her own passions. This felt hollow and manipulative to me, but not to Winnie; she signs away her millions with a smile. Jake’s dishonesty and colossal mistake with Winnie’s money is a blip in the film, and its effect on their relationship is shockingly negligible. Winnie is simply a piggy bank who doesn't complain about being the plaything of an ambitious businessman.

This isn't the end of Winnie's misuse, as Jake uses her as a bargaining chip for his own gain when he discovers she is pregnant, a development that brings the idea that a woman’s worth is in her womb to the fore. When the characters meet after a brief time apart, Jake clasps Winnie’s growing belly. What should have been a time to discuss the dishonesty that had driven them apart becomes a moment of instant reconciliation.

By juxtaposing male economic success with female pregnancy, the film compares traditional male and female creation. This dichotomy could make for an interesting discussion of gender role expectations. Unfortunately, Stone lets this point fall flat. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps doesn't discuss social attitudes nor does it adequately confront the issues it raises surrounding the male ownership of female bodies.

While Winnie's objectification stands out as the most problematic aspect of the film, if we take a distanced look we can make some larger conclusions about how women have been treated during the financial crisis. Women, on average, are more severely affected and are more likely to live in poverty than their male counterparts, and pop culture’s focus on the downfall of wealthy men narrows the film's narrative about those most vulnerable to the crisis. Like most of what is coming out of Hollywood, this film doesn’t focus on the real victims, but on a few stylized anti-heroes.

Even without a feminist lens, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps lacks intrigue and depth. It misses the mark by not telling an interesting story about the dangers of our economic habits nor about the personalities involved in our nation’s latest catastrophe. Stone merely captures a few fleeting moments in the lives of the country’s richest businessmen and throws in some objectification of women for good measure.

Written by: Andrea Gittleman, October 7th 2010

Running Dark

alicia — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Jamie Freveletti

William Morrow

Running Dark is the second book in Jamie Freveletti’s action-mystery-thriller series featuring chemist and long-distance runner Emma Caldridge. The first book, Running from the Devil, establishes the character of Caldridge as a strong scientist with a flair for quick thinking and physical endurance in the worst of situations. Running from the Devil followed Caldridge as her commercial plane was hijacked and crashed in the Colombian rainforest; Caldridge managed to get away from the group of surviving passengers as they were rounded up and lead through the forest by a group of Colombian fighters playing the middlemen for a drug cartel, intent on ransoming the survivors at their destination.

Caldridge demonstrated her physical and mental endurance as well as her scientific knowledge of natural chemistry, as she carefully followed the group through the Colombian jungle, surviving first on the remains of increasingly-rancid airplane food and then native plants. The group walked several miles a day; as Caldridge followed, she often had to race ahead or double back to avoid detection, landmines, and another mysterious group who begins to track her path with the help of trained dogs.

Occasionally, crash survivors were killed by the Colombian fighters, or left for dead on the path. When the kidnappers realize that Cameron Sumner, a U.S. government agent, might threaten their plan for ransoming the survivors, they hurt him badly. Caldridge eventually stumbles upon him, helps him through infection and fever, and makes an ally in the process. Their dependence on one another for personal survival and professional secrecy established the core relationships at work in the next book in the series.

Following on the heels of Freveletti’s first thriller, Running Dark takes place in South Africa, Somalia, and on the high seas of the Gulf of Aden as Caldridge makes her way from an endurance race during which she survives a roadside bomb and injection by an unknown substance to a cruise ship in peril of being overrun by Somali pirates. On that cruise ship is Cameron Sumner, working for Darkview, a United States-based independent security firm.

The pirate strike is a surprise to Sumner and the crew; because weapons are illegal on cruise ships, they barely manage to stave off several attacks using Sumner’s smuggled gun and the help of several passengers and crew members. Meanwhile, no one but Caldridge and the Darkview team back in the U.S. know that amongst the cargo on the ship might be several vials of Sarin, a colorless, odorless, and very deadly chemical weapon. When Caldridge finally reaches the imperiled boat, Sumner and Calderidge work with the crew and passengers of the ship to fight the invasion and try to safely operate the ship despite the nearly-constant threat of chemical and conventional attacks.

As was Running from the Devil, Running Dark is fast-paced and filled with interesting details about the characters’ lives, work habits, and career-oriented knowledge. The chapter narratives move back and forth in point of view from the bad guys to the good guys, keeping the reader on her/ his toes and introducing new and dangerous scenarios every few pages. Running Dark is not as all-absorbing as is Running from the Devil, and unfortunately there are several chapters that feel as if they are marking time until the final climax. I highly recommend reading the first novel before the second in order to contextualize the relationships and understand the back story of the events and characters revisited in Running Dark; if you’re a fan of international thrillers and/ or layered female characters, give Freveletti’s Emma Caldridge a try in this series.

Written by: Stefanie Snider, October 4th 2010

A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop

mandy — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Directed by Zhang Yimou

Sony Pictures Classics

I walked out of the screening of A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop feeling vaguely dissatisfied. While the official selection of the 2010 Berlin Film Festival bills itself as a “black comedy thriller [which serves] as an expose of how intense desires can consume humanity,” it neither thrills nor tickles the funny bone. Instead, I found myself repeatedly checking my watch despite the film’s ninety-five minute run time.

A Chinese re-telling of the Coen Brothers’ classic debut, Blood Simple, A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop is set in a desolate area of northern China during the Late Imperial period. The action opens on the employees (Cheng Ye, Mao Mao, and Xiao Shenyang) looking on as their boss’ wife (Yan Ni) purchases state-of-the-art weaponry—a handgun—from a band of wandering Persians. The boss’ wife is having an affair with Li (Xio Shenyang), a clownish man with a “soft spirit.” After buying the gun, the boss’ wife (she’s never given a name, incidentally) makes it clear that she expects Li to help her kill her abusive and miserly husband, Wang (Ni Dahong). When Wang discovers the affair, he hires Zhang (Sun Hunglei), a patrol officer to murder the two. Greedy and cold-blooded, Zhang has plans of his own—plans that will result in even more bloodshed.

This film is sort of like pectin-free jelly; it has all the right ingredients except something that would firm it up and give it texture. And several hours after leaving the Sony Pictures screening room, I still can’t think of what that indescribable something may be. Better character development? A slightly more sympathetic Zhang? More background characters to give the film more local flavor? Real acting on Xiao Shenyang’s part as opposed to his constant mugging and gesticulation? Genuine comedy or, perhaps, more of a neo-noir feel? Or maybe a tender love scene between Li and the boss’s wife that would have helped me understand why she was willing to tolerate such a cowardly buffoon?

Then again, this film had too much of some things as well: slapstick, time-lapse montages, all of its characters hatching schemes and working at cross purposes. A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop also has plot holes galore. How does Wang amass such a fortune as a proprietor of such an out of the way business? Aside for the imperial police who stop by early in the film, this shop never has any customers. And why do Wang’s employees stick around when they aren’t being paid? For that matter, how does Zhang find so much time away from his patrol duties and from where does he get the blood-stained clothes?

This is not to say that A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop was a total waste of time. Many of its early sequences have a colorfully frenetic quality. A scene where employees twirl around like whirling dervishes as they handle noodle dough was beautifully inventive, and the Persian gun dealer’s swordplay was transfixing. The cinematography granted the film’s arid landscapes a bleak sort of beauty.

I admit that I’ve never seen this film’s source material, but given that Blood Simple had the Coen Brothers sharing the director’s chair and a pre-Fargo Frances McDormand in the lead, I am tempted to conclude that this retread isn’t worthy to undo the original’s sandals.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, September 14th 2010

The Owls

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Cheryl Dunye

Parliament Film Collective

The anticipation for Cheryl Dunye’s latest feature, an experimental narrative entitled The Owls (Older Wiser Lesbian) was high as information about the project has been accessible for some time. The filmmaker and actors belong to the Parliament Film Collective, a matrix of lesbian and new queer cinema creativity. The film cost $22,000 to make, and seems to fit in with the challenge made by Maya Deren to make good affordable films. (She said her films cost what Hollywood spends on lipstick.)

The Owls should turn queer cinema in a new direction, away from big budgets and narrative construction with rising falling action and resolution, following the old Hollywood premise. It's not about coming of age stories of lesbians or coming out or first romance. It’s a more authentic look at lesbian and queer lives with an authentic form to match. The short film category is pretty much saturated by lesbian filmmakers because of budgetary constraints, and even the documentary format with lots and lots of donors and sponsors. This film, too, had donors and sponsors, but was made collectively, and that is the difference.

The Owls is an odyssey about lesbian/queer personal politics and features actors that continue to put lesbian filmmaking on the map. With a smart script by Sarah Schulman, the premise of the film concerns four middle aged dykes whose lives didn’t turn out really they way they wanted, and who cover up the accidental murder of a provocative baby dyke. The initial moments of the film blast footage of the riot grrrl band The Screech with captivating music set to feminist political lyrics and jarring imagery to boot. With this the veteran director pulls you in from the first seconds.

The film seeks to unite today’s nuanced lesbian-queer-butch-transman movement with no labels, but enough signposts that reveal a collective language known to the audience it primarily caters to. The rich iconography of images, in your face closeups with gut wrenching confession, and split screen anecdotes interspersed with clever dialogue makes this an exciting film. The fragmented narrative and cinema vérité encounters with the actors, and the collective nature of the venture cooks up a fresh kind off story telling.

Cross-posted from Movie Magazine International

Written by: Moira Sullivan, September 4th 2010

Salt

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Phillip Noyce

Columbia Pictures

The Cold War may be over (or not, given the recent New York City-based Russian spy scandal), but it’s alive and well in Salt, the new action adventure thriller directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Angelina Jolie. Originally intended to be a vehicle for Tom Cruise (until he bowed out, citing that the role would be too similar to his work in the Mission Impossible franchise), the film was then refashioned for Jolie. Here she plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who is accused by a Russian defector of being a spy. In the wake of the news stories swirling around real-life Russian spy Anna Chapman, the release of this film couldn’t be more timely. Thankfully, it’s also tremendous fun, even if the plot is so outlandish that to truly enjoy it you’ll need to suspend all brain activity once you enter the theater.

One of my problems with Jolie is, unlike other actresses in her age range (e.g. Kate Winslet), she is not a particularly emotive actress; in fact, I often find both her onscreen and off-screen appearances to be utterly glacial, devoid of all warmth and vulnerability. That visceral frigidity works perfectly in Salt, and from a feminist point of view, it’s refreshing to see a woman (who does have a magnetic screen presence–coldness notwithstanding) headline an action adventure thriller.

Whether she’s creating a bomb out of office furniture or executing some insane stunt that has to be seen to be believed, Jolie acts with abandon and brio. She’s terrifically riveting as we follow Salt engaging in all sorts of high- and low-tech derring-do to elude capture. There doesn’t seem to be anything too preposterous for the character to do to get herself out of a bind. Watching Salt stage one mayhem after another is exciting in itself.

The screenplay by Kurt Wimmer is packed with action and dialogue that is equally absorbing and inane. But thanks to the velocity of the film’s direction, coupled with the the star’s investment and charisma, Salt emerges as this summer’s best popcorn film. Judging by the open-ended conclusion of the film, this could become another action franchise. Go see it, but remember to forget about logic when you buy your ticket.

Cross-posted at Films For Women

Written by: Iris Dorbian, July 27th 2010

Forbidden Passion

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 23:59:00 +0000

By Rita Herron

Forever

Forbidden Passion is a paranormal romance centered around the relationship of Dr. Marlena Bender and Sheriff Dante Valtrez. Set in the small Southern town of Mysteria, the book begins with Marlena returning home to confront her troubled past. Twenty years before, Marlena witnessed the gruesome deaths of her mother and sister at the hands of two men in the woods. She was saved by Dante, then a local teenager.

Haunted by the events of that day, Marlena has pursued a career as a scientist, studying the genetic reasons for violent behavior. Dante, too, is haunted by that day, but for different reasons. He knows the truth about the attack on Marlena’s family: they weren’t attacked by men at all, but by a pack of demons; a pack that Dante himself used to be a part of. Ashamed of his dark past, Dante has devoted his life to protecting the citizens of Mysteria from the demonic forces that prey on them. Despite Dante’s resolve to stay away from Marlena, the two are thrown back into each other’s lives when a serial killer begins stalking Marlena, leaving her tokens from his victims.

This is the third, and I would presume final, book in Rita Herron’s Demonborn series. It’s your typical paranormal romance: the two main characters fight their mutual attraction to each other for half the book before finally succumbing to temptation. There are a lot of demon-related killings, as well as a prophecy and a high-stakes “good versus evil” showdown. Herron keeps the action coming at a pretty fast pace, so even though Forbidden Passion isn’t revolutionary, it isn’t boring either.

The book revolves mainly around the mystery/thriller aspect of the plot, throwing in bits of sexual tension here and there. This makes it a good read for those who prefer their romance novels to be driven by story instead of sex. In the end, Forbidden Passion was able to hold my interest for the duration of the book, but it wasn’t good enough for me to want to read the other books in the series.

Written by: Victoria Kroeger, May 19th 2010

Chloe

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:01:00 +0000

Directed by Atom Egoyan

Sony Picture Classics

A retread of Anne Fontaine’s 2003 film, Nathalie, I walked out of the theater feeling rather disappointed with Chloe.

Julianne Moore plays Catherine Stewart, a successful gynecologist who is married to a college professor named David (Liam Neeson). After David misses a flight home, Catherine looks through his phone and finds a rather questionable photo. Catherine then becomes consumed with the suspicion that David is cheating on her. After a chance meeting with Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a young escort, Catherine decides to hire her to seduce her husband, ostensibly to determine what makes him tick and turns him on. Chloe accepts the assignment with alacrity, sharing with Catherine the explicit details of her rendezvous with David.

It is at this point that I began scratching my head. If Catherine thought she had proof of David’s extramarital dalliances, why didn’t she just confront him outright? Or hire a private detective to look into his activities? Or go through his things and check credit card statements, emails, and call records to uncover more evidence? Isn’t that what usually happens in real life when women think their husbands are double dipping? Unfortunately, this isn’t the only poor—or poorly explained—choice Catherine makes.

To up the confusion factor, Catherine’s behavior toward Chloe is often inexplicably maternal. She advises her to get checked for STI’s, expresses concern over Chloe’s health simply because Chloe sneezes, and all but kisses her boo-boo when Chloe takes a spill on her bike and skins her knee.

Chloe enjoys being nurtured and obviously views Catherine as a mother figure. This is impressed as she repeatedly tries to give Catherine a hairpin that belonged to her real mother. Telling viewers about Chloe’s mother could have provided this limp story with some interesting wrinkles; however, Chloe’s back-story is never properly explored. How she ended up becoming a call-girl and exactly what drives her obsession with Catherine is left unexplained.

None of the characters are suitably fleshed out, for that matter. We know David is a flirt, but Liam Neeson’s anemic performance would have you believe that his behavior is merely reflexive. The fact that Catherine seems halfway willing to accept that meager explanation makes it even harder to understand her choices. The couple have obviously had problems in their marriage in the past but we never find out exactly what they were or how (or even if) they got resolved.

And what’s up with their son? Michael (Max Theiriot) feels an obvious hostility toward his mother and his trips to a therapist’s couch are alluded to several times, but this character never comfortably inhabits the world of this story. Throwing all of Michael’s footage on the floor and making a few changes to the story would have helped this film immensely.

To make matters worse, the filmmaker’s decision to violate the show-don’t-tell rule further undermined this enterprise. Newsflash! Stories told by unreliable narrators pack more of a punch when the audience initially believes what it’s been told. Moviegoers should never be able to anticipate plot twists.

Properly executed, Chloe could have been an erotic thriller par excellence. Instead, the filmmakers never actually decide what they want this film to be. Is this movie simply a portrait of marriage where the thrill is gone or a glimpse into a career woman’s mid-life crisis? Is it an indictment of prostitution—a trade where workers are purchased, used, and ultimately discarded—or a metaphor for how some mothers collude with father-daughter incest? Maybe this movie is treatise on how sexual passion and jealousy are almost always inextricably linked.

Chloe, manages to be all of these things and none of these things. It is undone by its slack pacing, under-developed characters, depressive tone, and somewhat implausible story. If you are a fan of any of the featured actors, I would suggest that you wait until this film becomes available on DVD. Chloe just isn’t worth the price of full admission.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, March 27th 2010

Dowaha (Buried Secrets)

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Directed by Raja Amari

Nomadis Images

Dowaha (Buried Secrets) is the second feature film by Tunisian director Raja Amari. The film follows the story of Aicha, a teenage girl who lives with her spinster sister and older mother in the basement of a crumbling, abandoned mansion in a remote area. The women are hiding from something unknown and live in a different reality of total seclusion, other than the occasional trip into town to sell piecework at a fabric shop. One day, the family's secluded existence is disrupted when a young couple moves into the main part of the mansion. The women remain in their hiding spot and continue living the way they had been without revealing themselves to the couple, but Aicha becomes hopelessly fascinated with them.

The film is a coming of age, feminist thriller that kept me interested the entire way through. It is also a story of the contradictions between tradition and the modern world, and what it means to be a girl and to become a woman. Aicha is desperate for the world of high heels and lipstick, while her mother and sister do everything in their power to keep her from it.

The plot of Dowaha is evocative of classic fairytales, but without the happy ending. Interestingly, it is not the outside world that Aicha must fear, but her mother and sister who are wicked and intent on keeping her (and themselves) prisoner. The film's crumbling palatial setting and its rich, vibrant colors are aesthetically pleasing and give it a feeling of being set in another world during another time.

Written by: Liz Simmons, March 13th 2010