A fleet, enjoyable Jackie Chan romp, this dubbed and retitled 1994 version of Drunken Master II (a belated sequel to the 1979 Drunken Master, which served to launch Chan’s career) brings back his turn-of-the-century folk hero Wong Fei-hung exercising his virtuoso drunken fist sallies against thugs after a long string of provocations. The climactic choreographic rumble is well worth waiting for. The credited director, Lar Kar-leung, who was responsible for the original, was fired by Chan halfway through the shooting, and this appears to be Chan’s show all the way. 102 min. (JR)
In early-70s France, a thoughtful nine-year-old (Nina Kervel) undergoes a series of crises when her middle-class French mother and Spanish father become radical leftists, committed to feminist, anti-Franco, and pro-Allende activities. The script was adapted from an Italian novel by Domitilla Calamai, though because director Julie Gavras is the daughter of left-wing filmmaker Costa-Gavras, it’s tempting to speculate on whether this first feature reflects some of her own experiences. Most of the story is told from the girl’s viewpoint; her confusion about the political issues is complicated by her conservative grandparents and anticommunist Cuban nanny (who provides the film’s title). The young heroine is rather humorless, but Gavras’s intelligence and skillful touch are evident throughout. With Stefano Accorsi and Julie Depardieu (Gerard’s daughter). In French with subtitles. 99 min. (JR)
This heart-warmer by Robert Benton has some of the tender wisdom and humor of his other features (e.g., Nobody’s Fool), though Benton’s decision to hang his dramatic payoff on the pronouncements of a fortune-teller suggests a certain stickiness along with the sweetness. Adapted by Allison Burnett from a novel by Charles Baxter, the story considers various couples in Portland, Oregon, but centers on a coffeehouse owner (Greg Kinnear) whose wife (Selma Blair) leaves him for a woman and whose best friend (Morgan Freeman), a happily married professor on indefinite leave, advises him while nursing his own heartbreak. Their torments and triumphs moved me even as I regretted some of the script’s emotional simplifications. With Radha Mitchell, Alexa Davalos, Toby Hemingway, and Fred Ward. R, 102 min. (JR)
Sometimes the most powerful and influential people are protected by their relative obscurity, and it’s hard to think of a better illustration of this principle in the film world than the multifaceted, eccentric, controversial Pierre Rissient, whom I’ve known for 35 years. Among other achievements, he’s probably discovered more important filmmakers than anyone else I knowfigures ranging from Cy Endfield to Lino Brocka to Jane Campion to Abbas Kiarostami. It takes most of Todd McCarthy’s well-used 110 minutes in this lively documentary to explain all the creative, behind-the-scene activities Rissient generates in relation to criticism, filmmaking, distribution, exhibition, and programming, and even though this is mainly the sympathetic view of a friend, the portrait is complex and nuanced. Among the many interviewees, Olivier Assayas is especially perceptive when he describes Rissient as being like a teenager. In English, French, and Mandarin with subtitles. (JR)
Though Pere Portabella is a major talent in experimental narrative film, working atypically in 35-millimeter, he’s still relatively unknown because his early features could be shown only clandestinely in Franco’s Spain and none is commercially distributed. The Silence Before Bach is his most pleasurable and accessible film to date, above all for its diverse performances of the title composer’s work. Gracefully leapfrogging between fact and fiction in at least two centuries and several countries, it recalls some playful aspects of his Warsaw Bridge (1989) while juxtaposing past and present as if they were attractions in a theme park. In Spanish, Italian, and German with subtitles. 102 min. (JR)
