lapsus53 Reviews

Row Your Boat (1999)

Excellent - strong performances; touching & moving

[10/10 · 27 May 2004]

A great little sleeper movie, with outstanding work from the ensemble cast - especially Bai Ling (expected) and Jon Bon Jovi (less expected, but nicely impressive).

A very New York movie, kind of a "Mean Streets" love story. Bon Jovi plays an ex-con trying to get his act together; Bai Ling plays the unhappily married immigrant he falls for. William Forsythe is good as Bon Jovi's criminal brother. Jill Hennessy is funny & sexy (great wig!) as the girlfriend.

Some violence, and an unexpected ending I didn't see coming; also, some very droll, drily funny scenes with Bon Jovi's character as a census taker dealing with wacky New Yorkers - look for the corpse scene!

The strongest part of the movie is the love story between Bon Jovi's 'Jamey' and Bai Ling's 'Chun Hua' - which starts as a romantic comedy. Very funny dialogue in the teaching-her-English scenes.

All in all, a satisfying, gritty movie with strong relationships and a dire, unexpected plot twist. Worth a look!

Call Me (1988)

Fun little 'B' movie!

[10/10 · 27 May 2004]

Diverting and fun, with a few thrills thrown in. Mixes two plot lines cleverly, if with a little too much coincidence! Very atmospheric with hidden corners of New York City, especially at night. A really cool, nicely executed look - sort of film noir in color. Good work by the DP and production & costume designers. (look at all the oranges & blues)

Fun cast - young Steve Buscemi, David Strathairn, Boyd Gaines (double Tony winner on B'way!), Patti D'Arbanville. Patricia Charbonneau is attractive in the lead, and Stephen McHattie is coolly creepy as the chief baddie.

Not great, but a solid B movie - a guilty pleasure. (It's even a little erotic - but watch out for strong language, if you're squeamish about 'bad' sex words.)

13 Moons (2002)

Quirky, consistently surprising, with a seemingly effortlessstructure!

[10/10 · 13 June 2002]

Thank the cinema gods that movies like this are still being made - personal, inimitable, expressive visions you'll never see in a studio boutique division's wildest dreams!

Doing his best work since the very funny "In The Soup," Alexandre Rockwell again works with a large ensemble cast of fine but often under-used actors to tell the niftily interwoven stories of an unlikely set of characters all of whose paths cross because of a marital spat and a life-weary bailbondsman getting saddled with his waifish son - who's in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Problem is, it seems the only good match is sloshing about in the innards of the bedrugged, drunken, wacked-out Peter Stormare (in a Santa suit, continuing Rockwell's ongoing leitmotiv in several films). The movie, beautifully shot on hi-def video by the estimable Phil Parmet, with an insinuating score, all takes place in one night, an extended but befuddled chase after the wayward, reluctant kidney donor.

Among an as entertaining group of actors as you're likely to find, Daryl Mitchell, Rose Rollins, and Peter Dinklage are especially sharp and funny. Keep an ear peeled for Rollins's perfectly pitched horribly bad rap song!

Lots of incidental pleasures along the way, and, typical in the Rockwellian oeuvre, an uplifting moment at the end - literally and figuratively. All in all, a shaggy-dog delight.