Chaos Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Taxi Driver. Street Scenes. Mean Streets. The Last Temptation of Christ. I Call First. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. What do all of these have in common? Each comes from good ol' Martin Scorsese, and featured Harvey Keitel. He's not just the bloody-car-solving Wolf, and he's certainly not only the Bad Lieutenant. Most of the above films were on the streets, one was on the road, and one, well, it was in the ancient, Biblical dust. So what could they have planned for their cinematic reunion 20* years after they last worked together? Variety reports that it will be on Daphna Kastner's Chaos, which she wrote and will direct, while Scorsese is the executive producer. It's worth noting -- she's Keitel's wife, so this casting announcement isn't an entirely huge surprise.

So it's not quite the re-team you'd expect (maybe that will come in the future!?), but for now, I'll take what I can get. The drama is set in New York City, but it isn't about a cab driver and a prostitute or mean streets. It's the story of "two lovelorn people whose lives intersect in the city." Fie those vague descriptions! One of the film's other producers, Michael Cerenzie, says: "Marty, Harvey, Christine and I all share a tremendous passion for Daphna Kastner's original script and a strong belief in her talent as a filmmaker." Since the script is already in the bag, they're hoping to finish up casting and get the flick shot in New York City before SAG's June 30th contract expiry.

*Edited, thanks to David!

Round two, special for those of you whose family holiday traditions involve movie-going. To sum up: Rumor Has It... is awful, Wolf Creek is gruesome, Casanova is fluff, and The New World is murky. Details follow.

• Rumor Has It...: Rob Reiner directing a semi-sequel to The Graduate sounded so promising. It's too bad the movie is just not very good.  Most critics are disappointed, not only by the movie itself but also by the decline of Reiner, who has gone from genius to guy who directs bad romances (he is, after all, to blame for The Story of Us) in a depressingly short time. If you want to read a review that's at least sympathetic, check out our friend Roger Ebert's take - he thought it was "watchable." Is that a good thing?

• Wolf Creek: Remember the various reactions we covered a while back involving Roger Ebert's review of Chaos? Well, as soon as I read the essay of a critic who had walked out of a Wolf Creek screening, I immediately went over to see what Ebert had to say - and yep, he was equally disgusted. Though internet-based horror junkies are predictably wild about the movie, mainstream critics, for the most part, are repelled by its sadism and pointless violence.

• The New World: So, critical reactions to a Terrence Malick movie are split! Who could have guessed? Though the guy only puts out a movie every eight years are so, no one is ever sure what to make of them - and reactions to The New World are no exception. Either Colin Farrell is "stiff and uncomfortable" or he's "very good." The film is either "an incandescent brume of wonder, dread and awe" or "As an epic...monumentally slight." You get the idea. While it's impossible to summarize the incredibly broad range of opinions on the film, it's probably safe to say that if you're looking for a)a hot Colin Farrell romance, or b)a history lesson, you should go elsewhere.

• Casanova: It's never a good sign when a review's first non-Gay Cowboy-related line describes a movie as "utterly trivial." And, sadly for Lasse Hallström and the rest of the crew behind Casanova, that reviewer isn't alone in his sentiments. With the lonely exception of A. O. Scott of the New York Times, no one is very impressed by the movie, unless it's by a supporting figure (like Jeremy Irons, say, or the magnificent Oliver Platt).

Roger Ebert, after giving a zero star review to Chaos, received a letter from its producer and director in which they defended their film, insisting that, "Real evil exists, and cannot be ignored, sanitized or exploited. It needs to be shown just as it is." Ebert, however, disagrees.  In his mind, the lack of motivation or context given the killer/torturer/evildoer in Chaos makes the filmmakers irresponsible and, he suspects, motivated more by the notoriety of scandal than the creation of a quality film.  Additionally, he is deeply troubled by what he calls "the absence of any alternative" to the horrors depicted in the film.  Granting the possibility that the world really is as horrible as the filmmakers suggest, Ebert insists that it is then their responsibility as artists to offer an alternative; to give audiences a reason to hope.

Whether you agree with Ebert or not, it's incredibly refreshing when a mainstream, thumbs up/thumbs down-type critic is allowed to take a moment to seriously consider the power and meaning of cinema. I expect this sort of thing from his fellow Chicagoan Jonathan Rosenbaum, perhaps, but certainly not from Ebert. Has anyone around here seen Chaos?  What do you think?