MOVIE REVIEWS

Tokyo!
BY JAY ANTANI, FILMCRITIC.COM

Tokyo! is a curious conundrum. The movie is a triptych of short films about the titular metropolis made by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Joon-ho Bong, three non-Japanese filmmakers. Each tries to offer up personalized impressions of the Japanese capital, and that alone would suggest a worthwhile cinematic experience. But the films themselves lack the intimacy with Tokyo's cultural nuances that we crave from a piece like this, trafficking instead in stereotypes and platitudes.

For its easy charm and humor, Michel Gondry's "Interior Design" comes off best. Gondry's story follows a young couple -- Hiroko and Akira (Ayako Fujitani and Ryo Kase) -- who have just moved to Tokyo, struggling to find an apartment, jobs, and generally to start their new lives. Akira's an aspiring filmmaker-artist, hence a bit of a space case, while his girlfriend Hiroko is smart but directionless. While getting started in Tokyo, they bunk up with a friend in her absurdly tiny apartment. Gradually, Hiroko pulls away from Akira and, in a Gondry-esque bit of transmogrification, she suddenly has the ability to shift from human to chair form and back. As a chair, she becomes part of the furnishings in a stranger's home, and feels herself an object of value, something she lacked as a human being. Gondry pokes fun at Tokyo's housing crisis: The living spaces are hilariously cramped, hardly more than glorified closets. With the low-key bantering of its characters, the quotidian details of Tokyo street life, its movie-within-a-movie device, the human-chair magic trick, and the overall theme of life-as-reverie, this is a Gondry project through and through. And, though not illuminating on the subject of its city, it's still a cute, clever take on Tokyo to keep us amused. >>MORE

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Madea Goes To Jail Review | Shifting Loyalties
BY FILMGORDON

Multi-talented entertainment force Tyler Perry attempts to marry two genres with mixed success discovering along the way it’s hard to serve two master in the uneven dramaedy, “Madea Goes to Jail.”

Alternating between buckwild Mabel “Madea” Simmons, (Perry) who has some SERIOUS anger issues and is trying to stay out of trouble and Assistant District Attorney, Josh Hardaway (Derek Luke) who seems to be on the fast track to marital bliss before a person from his past shows up and has him reexamining his life choices. >>MORE