THREAT is currently out on DVD.  Director Matt Pizzolo’s impressive first and fully digital feature is a low budget, independent feature that shows promise for its young actors and production team.  They appropriately call themselves the Kings Mob.  Shot at over 50 locations around NYC with non-professionals in their teens or early 20’s, THREAT boasts to be a true independent feature. 

THREAT is realistic in its portrayal of its 20-something year old young adults.  Told under the heading of Wednesday night, then Thursday night etc… the tactic is employed as the youth are alive during the late evenings while adults work during the day from 9 to 5 and sleep at night.  This is no Hollywood fare where adults portray characters 20 years younger or an indie sex-driven feature.  Though playing a prominent part in THREAT, sex is used to explain or examine the nature of the characters, rather than exist in a charged up scene.

The story centers on a homeless punk-rocker Jim (Carlos Puga) and a hip-hop artist Fred (Keith Middleton).  The two weld an unlikely friendship rising out of their discussions relating to street attitudes and observations.  THREAT traces the end result, a riot which could in reality result in real life, owing to the explosive nature of youth.

The young actors are energetic and speak without restraint, complete with slang, attitude and accent.  The musical score, programmed by Alec Empire and Queue is quite good though particularly nasty at times.

THREAT works well when the young players do their ensemble piece – funny often when they do not make sense.  The best sequence has girls vs. boys talking s**t about rape and killing.  One wishes the narrative will be stronger.  For example, how and why these people come together is never fully explored.  In one scene a bartender totally against drunken drivers is questioned why then he would work in such a job.  His answer is typical of the film’s one flaw.  “To get to know your enemy!” THREAT is quirky, edge and different but the whole piece lacks a certain purpose and cohesiveness.  The violence erupted at the end of THREAT is disturbing but leads nowhere.

Still, one has to give credit to the Kings Mob for their entrepreneurial spirit in getting the film put together. 

The movie’s actual running time is 80 minutes but the DVD has a running time of 125 minutes that include 2 alternative audio tracks and the following special features:-
- 3 promotional trailers edited during various points of the film’s production used by the filmmakers to raise money
- the News Story that followed the Kings Mob on tour as they crashed Sundance
- 15 minutes of deleted scenes
- Alternative cuts and
- Behind-the-scenes footage, a staple of most DVDs.
Some of the additional materials are just as fascinating as the main feature.

HOOT is well-intentioned family fare with the environmental theme of saving the natural breeding grounds of a rare wild life species – the night owl.  The villain is the conglomerate Paula’s Pancake House, personified in the form of one of its top executives, Mr. Muckle (Clark Gregg last seen in WHEN A STRANGER CALLS) intent on opening up its hundredth restaurant on the owls’ habitat.  In Florida!  Where HOOT’s young hero and protagonist, Roy Eberhardt (Logan Lerman) now resides after the family relocates from scenic Montana.

M:I-3 is starkly different from the other two Mission Impossible films, primarily for the 3 different directors.  Number 3 is directed by J.J. Abrams, making his first full length feature debut after pal Tom Cruise offered him the job, impressed with an episode Abram’s creation, ALIAS.  Though I love the films of Brian De Palma (the first M:I) and dislike most the films of John Woo (M:I-2), I have to say that M:I-3 is the best of the three. 

When I interviewed director Chen Kaige during the Toronto International Film Festival for THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN, Chen kept emphasizing the amount of research that went into the making of that film.  By contrast, his latest feature THE PROMISE appears to be the antithesis of that historical epic.  THE PROMISE is an action fantasy adventure concocted entirely from his mind.  Set in a fairy tale era when Gods and humans live side by side, armies are clothed in bright red (red are the good guys) with total disregard for camouflage.  The armour and cloaks worn by the generals and king are of the caliber of D&G or Versace designs.  Barren and pastureless lands are replaced by expansive waterfalls and fields of cherry blossom trees.  The ground is often littered with white petals or yellow flowers.  And for what THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN lacked – poor storytelling technique and emotionless characters – THE PROMISE has improved on the previous’ faults.  THE PROMISE also happens to be more satisfying than Zhang Yimou’s colourful but empty HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS in that it contains lots of feeling and spectacle. 

UNITED 93 has probably the most intriguing tagline for a movie this year.  September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the fourth.