Philadelphia Weekly

New Releases

Ciao
Directed by Yen Tan
C+
Reviewed by Matt Prigge
Opens Fri., Jan. 30

The opening shot of Ciao more closely resembles the work of Austrian provocateur Michael Haneke (specificlly Cach�) than it does the most recent gay Amerindie love story. In a lengthy static shot set behind two symmetrically framed houses, we see, in the distance, a man getting into an SUV and driving away. We'll learn seconds later he's en route to a fatal auto accident. It's icy, sterile and formally distant.

Following this, every shot is locked down on a tripod and lasts far longer than in most movies; many scenes boast minimal dialogue. Director Yen Tan wants you to think of him as a filmmaker first and a gay filmmaker second.

Tan probably wants you to think of him as a screenwriter a distant third, but at least he's chosen a story simple enough to warrant such minimalism. After the man dies, he leaves behind our two protagonists: Jeff (Adam Neal Smith), his best friend who pined for him unrequitedly, and Andrea (co-writer Alessandro Calva), a strapping Italian cyber lover about to fly out to meet him. After a reel of quiet, tear-free brooding, Jeff whimsically invites Andrea to come out to not-so-scenic Dallas anyway.

You know what comes next. (Spoiler, but c'mon.) The two will hook up and mourn. But Ciao is painfully conscious of the cliches of the genre, and is thus happy to let Jeff and Andrea take their sweet time getting to know each other in the most believable, least sentimental way possible. They chat too much, but both actors have a loose, easygoing rapport that gives the illusion of being genuine and unscripted.

Still, even avoiding cliches can be a cliche, and Ciao unfortunately feels more respectable for what it isn't than what it is. For a good long while Tan is able to cast a spell. But spells can't last and eventually Ciao's style feels heavy, fussy and sometimes a little too similar to the unintentionally comic faux-austere style Woody Allen tried out with his Bergman rip-off Interiors.

Ultimately, Ciao proves unable locate the bittersweet finale that burrows into the mind and sticks with the audience, instead favoring something closer to the sentimentality it had so stridently, almost pompously, avoided.

Inkheart
Directed by Iain Softley
C
Reviewed by Matt Prigge
Now showing

"The written word is a powerful thing," muses book nut Mo Folchart (Brendan Fraser) to his tweenaged daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett). Yes, it's particularly effective at providing the source for invention-handicapped would-be blockbusters, isn't it? Culled from Cornelia Funke's German kiddie fantasy novel, Inkheart is only the latest bibliophilic flick to stump for the power of reading all while taking away any need for an imagination. And wouldn't you know it stars Brendan Fraser.

The current king of the Green-Screen Challenge plays a "silvertongue," one born with the strange ability to bring characters and iconic elements from fiction into our world simply by reading them aloud. Naturally he's reluctant to use it, as the last time he did he brought forth various ne'er-do-wells from the titular tome--a run-of-the-mill fantasy romp involving nymphs, heartless baddies and a fiendish ghoul called "the Shadow"--and inadvertently trapped his wife within its pages. A decade later Mo and Meggie's paths again cross with Inkheart's materialized characters, prompting a madcap battle for world domination and whatnot.

Give Inkheart some props: Instead of surrounding Fraser exclusively with CGI, it adds in an embarrassment of fine British hams. As a forlorn but self-interested pyromaniac, Paul Bettany strikes a note of stirring gravity, while Helen Mirren huffs and puffs as a stern and white-maned book collector (and gets to belt the words "You barbaric piece of pulp fiction!").

Jim Broadbent doesn't disappoint as Inkheart's author, who's delighted to be put on death row by the evil characters he's created. And it's hard to hate on any movie that features Andy Serkis as the central villain, although it's difficult to like anything that gives him nothing to do but sneer.

Inkheart has so many interesting elements, so much promise, that it's a shame how little it satisfies. The central gimmick of filling the earth with literature's most famous goes almost criminally unfulfilled; what at first seems sub-Neil Gaiman eventually feels sub-Shrek. Most of Inkheart is plodding and inert, though it does turn fairly batshit during its messy climax, which includes flying monkeys, a Minotaur, arson, Helen Mirren astride a unicorn, Toto and a set that looks like it is, for whatever reason, trying to emulate the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

But hey, few things will send your kid to the bookshelf like an incompetent filmic fantasy.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Directed by Patrick Tatopoulos
D-
Reviewed by Sean Burns
Now showing

I know it's hard to imagine, but these Underworld movies are getting progressively worse.