Monday, September 18, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 9A
De Palma renders
'Dahlia' black and blue zi.
By Kristin MacDonald
Daily Film Editor
The Black Dahlia was a starry-eyed Hollywood
wanna-be found cut in two and disemboweled, her
face carved across at the mouth
from ear to ear. She wasn't so
much murdered as mutilated The BlaCk
death alone is never so horrific. Dahla
In fashioning a movie about her At the Showcase
grisly fate, director Brian De and Quality 16
Palma actually ends up with a Universal
fitting tribute - having merrily
ripped the film into piecemeal
shreds, he delivers a corpse so disfigured that ques-
tions of motive will go unanswered for decades.
Forties Hollywood is a favorite playground for
filmdom, and "Black Dahlia" dives into its seedy
underground of detectives and cover-ups with true
relish. Money and sex run everything, and from
gambling to blackmail, everyone has a past. No mat-
ter how classy the few female figures seem, they're
all some sort of prostitute, or they used to be. Men
take pride in their hats and keep their rat-a-tat-tat
tough-guy dialogue just as stylish:
"Get the picture?" snaps one suspect.
The detective doesn't miss a beat: "Technicolor."
This picture's bright, all right, but blurry. Enter
fast friends Dwight Bleichert and Leland Blanchard
(Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart), a pair of eager
detectives who somehow win their promotions with
a boxing match. The third leg of their precarious
triangle is Blanchard's blonde bombshell girlfriend,
the perfectly named Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson,
"Lost in Translation"), who takes drags on her long
cigarette holder like she's more amused by the peri-
od than concerned with emoting any real romantic
tension.
The detectives plunge into the seedy past of the
murder victim, unveiling her dalliances in amateur
porn and Los Angeles's surprisingly lush lesbian
scene. Who knew there were '40s clubs featuring, of
all things, sparkle-wearing showgirls and k.d. lang?
But then again, you learn to expect anything from
"Black Dahlia," a film that swings like a stumbling
drunk from plotline to plotline, staggering indeci-
sively between noir, melodrama and flat-out camp.
Gangsters and lawmen float in and out and back
again with only the vaguest threads of connection as
Bleichert and Blanchard pursuea variety of unrelated
leads seemingly at random. The names come so fast
they can't be followed, and you begin to suspect this
heightened pace is nothing more than a desperate
ruse to cover up the plot's hysterical lack of sense.
Then we meet the bisexual socialite with whom
Bleichert occasionally tangos (Hilary Swank, "Mil-
lion Dollar Baby," whose rich-bitch accent sounds
more foreign than elite), and the movie really spirals
into overdrive, gaily tossing all logic to the wind.
The film makes a new sport of jumping sharks, but
Swank's absolutely preposterous family bares the
sharpest teeth - a spineless swindler father, per-
verted sister and pill-popping mother, swooning
like Molly Shannon in her most unbearably manic
"Superstar" days. The affluent are always a favorite
noir target, but these border on caricature: In order
to commemorate the morning paper that bore news
of the father's first million, he shot the dog who
brought it in from the curb and had him stuffed.
The pedigree of the "Black Dahlia" is just as rich,
In case you're locked inside the theater, suspenders also double as a self-choking device.
and its realization just as inexcusably nuts. Based
on a novel by James Ellroy (whose other writing
turned into the highly successful "L.A. Confiden-
tial") and directed by De Palma (who also helmed
"The Untouchables" and "Scarface"), "Black Dahl-
ia" and its stacked cast have been gathering buzz for
months. The absolute wizardry of its baiting trailer
certainly didn't hurt. Whoever cut this schlock into
that tempting two-minute teaser deserves a raise,
or at least a promotion - he or she achieves the
dramatic suspense that De Palma's bloated mess
never can.
The film is a proverbial trainwreck, and at a six-
way intersection: It doesn't matter who's precisely
at fault, since everything gets crunched anyway.
Johansson and Hartnett are too young and spotless
for their roles, Swank too old. All the performances
are painfully overwrought, although when so many
dependable performers equally fail it's usually a
condemnation of the director instead. De Palma
soaps them like daytime television - Scarlett even
cheesily receives the soft focus treatment.
The only actor who escapes unscathed is actually
the ill-fated starlet herself, presented posthumously
in old casting tapes. Mia Kirshner ("24") flirts sadly
for the unseen casting director, a graceful balance of
skinny, desperate hope. Her large, pale eyes lighten
almost to blank as she slinks towards the camera,
iridescent, their glow haunting. She deserves better
than the old Hollywood runaround. Too bad. In life,
death and now in memorium, the Black Dahlia per-
petually fails to land a decent break.
Stella too subtle for the small screen
By Ben Megargel together into a weak narrative, often involv-
Daily Arts Writer ing run-ins with various neighbors and land-
lords. The resulting episodes are spotty and
In the sparse DVD collection of its first indicate clearly that "Stella" was better suit-
and only season, Comedy ed for its original medi-
Central's "Stella" follows ,tella I of um as a standup comedy
comic trio Michael Ian Sea strain show by the troupe of
Black, Michael Showalter scattershot, strait- the same name.
and David Wain through 10 But chemistry between
uneven episodes. The trium- jacket comedy the three former New
virate - all of "I Love the York University com-
'80s" fame - play socially just can't survive. ics is undeniable. Hav-
awkward versions of them- ing acted together since
selves, donning purposely Fortunately, VH1 the late '80s, they seem
cheap suits and generally a y completely at home with
acting with an inability to is RayS hiring. one another, pulling off
relate to anyone other than the most outrageous
each other. stunts with impressive
Lacking any semblance of a plot, "Stella" ease. Their brand of irony-fueled, straight-
is essentially a series of sketch bits strung faced humor is original and endearing. They
often use uncomfortable silence, useless
babbling and general absurdity to fill in our
postmodern social gaps. They also manage to
cover touchy topics without being too offen-
sive (a bit about Nazis in the pilot episode is
a must see).
The extras, however, are a weak attempt at
beefing up a barebones DVD. Various bloop-
ers, deleted scenes, and retrospective pieces
are unnecessary and poorly presented. Die-
hard fans may enjoy seeing the "Stella" trio
sit down to discuss their history together, but
overall the entire collection is just a drop in
their career bucket. Its strain of scattershot,
strait-jacket comedy just can't survive. For-
tunately for David and the Michaels, VH1 is
always hiring.
Show: **
Special Features: *
Courtesy of Comedy Central
Mmm. Steamy.
i
PETA Is considering a protest for the latest Olympic event.
Elephants, fathers and kicks
By Hyatt Michaels
Daily Arts Writer
Quentin Tarantino's masterful "Kill Bill" series
may have paid homage to old school kung-fu
exploitation flicks of the '70s,
but its glossy production value
(big budget + Uma Thurman) The Protector
surely left a sour taste in the At the Showcase
mouth of many martial-art-film and Quality 16
purists. Enter "The Protector," Weinstein
a goofy romp that devises elab-
orate action sequences without
breaking the bank or its audience's patience.
The film has been touted as the new vehicle
for Tony Jaa, the Thai movie star who made his
debut in the cult favorite "Ong Bak" a few years
ago under the name Panom Yeerum. Though he's
changed his name in hopes of extending his popu-
larity into the states, Jaa has stuck with the safe
formula that made the former film successful: lit-
tle plot, much ass-kicking.
Like "Bak," "The Protector" finds Jaa fighting
a host of baddies responsible for disrupting the
unity of a small village. Either an evil corporation
or an evil woman (it's never really clear ... maybe
both) steal Jaa's beloved pet elephant and, to top
it off, kill his father. This sets into motion enough
violence to make Thurman's Bride jealous. Each
subsequent scene following the death of his father
finds Jaa taking on superheroic abilities with little
logic but plenty of entertainment.
What makes "The Protector" somewhat remark-
able is that Jaa manages to pull off most of his
stunts effortlessly. Thanks to its obvious shoe-
string budget, the film has a how'd-they-do-that
quality that keeps you interested even when its
flawed dubbing becomes clear.
Unlike a large crop of recent action releases
that aim too high, "The Protector" is content
as the gritty martial-arts film it is, choosing to
showcase tendon-popping and Jaa's Muay Thai
martial-arts style instead of the oft-used roman-
tic subplot ripped directly from "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon." It's more along the lines
of dramatically daft martial arts epic "Drunken
Master."
While the martial arts films it mirrors combine
humor and action, it's hard to take Jaa seriously when
he cites lines like: "You killed my father. Where
is my elephant?" The film's horrible CGI vignettes
also look like poor re-imaginings of "Troy" in car-
toon format. Still, the powerhouse action sequences
are enough to make you forget about the occasional
lapse. "The Protector" is not high art, but as a mar-
tial arts flick, it's pure quality.
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