Testosterone Theatre: Lucky Number Slevin

A big bet gone wrong; A man brutally killed; a boy secretly spared; an average guy and a an average girl thrown together in New York City apartment.

What could commonly link these together? That's a big part of the fun that writer Jason Smilovic and director Paul McGuigan have in this unrepentantly bloody yet strangely high-spirited and even compassionate thriller that combines the usual cliches of revenge, murder, love and family in some very un-cliched ways.

Wrapped in a towel, Slevin (the wonderfully enigmatic Josh Hartnett, who has since faded into obscurity) encounters Lindsey (Lucy Liu), a chatty coroner whose eager to hear his story, as twisted as it is and later becomes. Slevin, it appears, is caught up in a bitter rivalry between two local crime bosses - the irascible Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) and the worldly yet unforgiving - and laconically named - Boss. Throw in a disproportionately interested cop (the always excellent Stanley Tucci) and the shadowy yet sarcastic assassin hired by each boss to take out the other, and all is set for som hard-charging fun as the disparate threads are unravelled and re-tied.

Slevin is essentially a straight forward, neat black comedy of errors(mistaken identity for one). The dialogue is at times razor sharp and the action is well shot. The body count climbs steadily as the movie progresses at a cracking pace that never becomes dull. Slevin is thematically similar to a few other choice stories, but like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Slevin should be enjoyed more for the ride and the audience should try not to guess ahead of the plot and let it unfold naturally.

The Girl From Naked Eye

So, its a Saturday night (we just picked that one randomly), you're home, you're bored with trolling and tweeting and haven't found anything new to "like".

You decide you're in the mood for a movie, but nothing too "heavy"; sure, you want some action, a couple of good, hyperkinetic fight scenes, some gunplay, a little T & A, you know...the usual.But not too much in the way of "story' no brain-twisting conundrums, no slowly unfurling relationship complications, no Byzantine revenge and political schemes. Just a "regular" guy, with a taste for the seamy side, but who's gotten himself in debt to the wrong kinda people and who has lost his taste for the fast lane.

And just to spice things up, you can throw in a not-so-innocent young girl, still in her teens, with long-shelved dreams of becoming a poet, and now content to offer herself to all manner of losers who just happen to have money to pay for her favours. Stir in a ruthlessly crooked cop and a somewhat principled nightclub/escort service owner, set somewhere in contemporary L.A. and watch sparks fly.

Martial arts champion Jason Yee takes much of the blame (or the credit (depending on your perspective) for the above, doing triple duties as writer, co-producer and star. he's enlisted some obscure but strangely likeable talent to help him deliver this potboiler, but none more winningly than Ron Yuan, as the bald-headed club owner, pimp and wanna-be gangster mentioned above. The interplay Yuan and Yee, particularly in a near humourous initial conflict that features one of the "girls" as a hapless (but vociferous) third wheel, almost lifts the movie.

But Girl From Naked Eye still bears too much of the modern B-movie funk to be more than just a throwaway. it doesn't wear out its welcome, but like a burger from a late-night greasy spoon, you won't miss it after its gone through your system.

Small Screen, Huge Stories: Boardwalk Empire & The Pillars of the Earth

Time was, not that long ago, when the uncompromising dedication to narrative was left to (some) feature films, while television - read network television - followed the path of least offense.

The purveyors of cable TV had a different idea though, and certainly over the last decade, cable channels have surpassed both  their network cousins and much of the feature film world in showing compelling programmes in both comedy and drama. Showtime has "Homeland" AMC has "Mad Men", STARZ has "Spartacus" and Ken Follet's "The Pillars of the Earth" and HBO has, among many others, "Boardwalk Empire".
Prohibition was likely intended as a political solution to a social problem, but its hard to argue with the contention that is created far worse problems than it ever solved. By shifting the supply side form legal to illegal sources without addressing the demand, it aided the growth of mobsterism and corruption, with the attendant ills. Such is the premise of this series, which has gone through two very popular and highly acclaimed seasons. The setting is Atlantic City(which provides the "Boardwalk" of the title), 1920, and the focus is primarily on one Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, nominally city treasurer, but de facto the Big Kahuna; nothing goes down - or up - in the town precincts without him knowing, and collecting on it. from his suite in the Ritz-Carlton he presides over bootlegging, prostitution and a host of illegal and legitimate buisnesses, aided and abetted by his brother Eli, the sheriff, and the city aldermen, his confederates.
But uneasy sits the head that wears the crown, and it will take all the skill and wit he has to manipulate and fend off enemies from without and within.

Medieval England may seem a long thematic jump form Prohibition-era America, but the elements are quite consistent: power, intrigue, lust, violence mistrust - and the desire to build something greater than what has previously been. Ken Follet's blockbuster novel gets the period treatment from Scott brothers, Ridley and Tony, who serve as executive producers, overseeing a cast and crew drawn mostly from Britain, but spanning the Continent. A humble master builder has dreams of building a great cathedral, but to do it, he must outwit some powerful forces with their own outsize agendas.

On the whole, the Boardwalk story is more compelling to watch, but Pillars should hardly be dismissed out of hand. For one, its more restrained. The in-your-face style of "Boardwalk", with its blood-spattered killings, frontal nudity and soft-porn sex scenes can become tiresome with repeated viewings, even though the writing overall redeems each episode. Another important difference is that the 'Pillars" series has a lone director for all the instalments, as opposed to the "revolving door" employed by "Boardwalk" creators Terence Winter, Martin Scorcese and Mark Wahlberg. Not saying there are any obvious aesthetic gaps, but it does jar a little bit.
Such nitpicking aside, both shows make excellent viewing, whether seen as a marathon, or at your leisure. They represent two ways of exploring the issue of man's enduring quest for power and personal aggrandizeement, a fascination that hardly ebbs, and for which cable TV is the ideal medium.