James Schamus Movies
Since his initial efforts of the early '90s, independent film producer and screenwriter James Schamus has learned a lot about international culture through his frequent fruitful collaborations with celebrated film director Ang Lee. "I can order a beer in Chinese now," jokes Schamus "and not just by saying Tsing Tao. I can actually say 'beer' in Chinese." Multilingual restaurant beverage ordering jokes aside, Schamus has been a key component in the production of some of the most provocative and intriguing independent films of the '90s, often recognized for taking necessary risks to bring challenging stories by innovative filmmakers to the screen, as well as consistently forsaking conventional confines in favor of artistic freedom and vision.Take a look at any list of important independent films of the past decade and it's likely that Schamus' name will appear somewhere in the credits. Aside from his collaborations with Lee, Schamus has worked with such notorious filmmakers as Todd Haynes and Todd Solondz, often producing (through his Good Machine production company) fiercely defiant and shockingly compelling films that may otherwise have been lost in a sea of mediocrity and studios unwilling to take the needed risks in bringing these stories to light. Aside from his work with Solondz and Haynes, Schamus' most enduring cinematic relationship may lie with Lee, with whom he has collaborated as screenwriter on all of Lee's films except Sense and Sensibility (on which Schamus served as co-producer). Schamus' keen ability to capture the complex emotional intricacies of characters in difficult situations has been a driving factor in the success of his scripting of Lee's films, including The Ice Storm (1997), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), and the phenomenally successful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), which was produced by Good Machine and earned Schamus Oscar nominations for Best Music (Song) for his lyrics to the film's "A Love Before Time" and Best Adapted Screenplay (along with co-writers Wang Hui Ling and Kuo Jung Tsai). Not speaking the Mandarin language in which the film is presented, or in which the original novel was written, Schamus describes the experience of writing the film as both rewarding and nerve-wracking. "It was weird because on the one hand, I was writing an original screenplay because I didn't know the novel...And on the other hand, I knew that I had to maintain fidelity to something I didn't know." ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Director Ang Lee's follow-up to his surprise box-office hit The Wedding Banquet is another look at ethnic and sexual conflicts in a Chinese family, with meals as a centerpiece of the film. Master chef Chu (Sihung Lung) is a long-time widower who lovingly cooks large Sunday dinners for his three daughters, who view the meals as too traditional. Secretly, however, successful airline executive Jia-Chien (Chien-Lien Wu) loves traditional cooking and would like to be a chef like her father, if women were permitted to do so. Her older sister Jia-Jen (Kuei-Mei Yang) is unmarried and cynical about men, but she becomes attracted to a volleyball coach and eventually pursues him vigorously. The youngest daughter, Jia-Ning (Yu-Wen Wang), is a college student who becomes pregnant from her frequent sexual escapades. As the film progresses, the personal relationships between the daughters and their significant others change unexpectedly. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sihung Lung, Yang Kuei-Mei, (more)
A gay New Yorker stages a marriage of convenience with a young woman to satisfy his traditional Taiwanese family, but the wedding becomes a major inconvenience when his parents fly in for the ceremony. Director Ang Lee came to international prominence with this warm-hearted comedy, which centers on the farcical confusion that emerges from this deception. Gao Wai Tung (Winston Chao) has never shared the truth about his sexuality with his family, and hopes to disguise his long-term relationship with his lover Simon by marrying Wei-Wei, a young artist who's only it for the green card. But Wai Tung's parents refuse to let him off the hook easily, showing up to plan a massive wedding banquet. Indeed, much of the film's comedy springs from the contrast between the sheer lavishness of the parents' plans and the sham nature of the wedding. Naturally, the titular party spins out of control, leading to a series of events that threatens all of Wai Tung's relationships. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winston Chao, May Chin, (more)
- 1993
An American sitcom family is parodied in this scathing satire that is part of the Independent Television Service's "TV Families" series. The family is comprised of Japanese-Americans fit into the typical Anglo sitcom family mold. The results are hilarious as they deal with drugs, sexuality, discrimination, aging, and the perils of parenting. Ma loafs around in the house dressed in her lovely bedroom clothes taking the life-support drugs of ailing Grandpa. Dad, the perfect TV dad, has a secret urge to murder his sick father. Their daughter is a pregnant cheerleader addicted to sex; their twins boys are total opposites. Kazumi is a drug addict with a space case for a girlfriend. Marvin is the classic computer nerd who secretly lusts after men in uniforms. Surrounding this family are drug-dealers looking to collect on owed money, cheerleaders on a vendetta, and a family lawyer looking for new prospects for the kiddie-porn industry. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sharon Omi, Ken Narasaki, (more)
- 1992
- NR
Acclaimed Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee made his directorial debut with this drama, leavened with gentle comedy, about a household turned upside down by a man who could not be much more out of place. Mr. Chu (Sihung Lung) is an elderly gentleman who has devoted much of his life to studying and teaching tai chi; growing old and wanting to be closer to his family, he decides to move in with his son. However, Mr. Chu has lived all his life in Beijing, and his son Alex (Bo Z. Wang) lives in New York City. Chu arrives at Alex's doorstep not knowing a single word of English, and he soon finds himself out of sorts in the home of his very Americanized son. Alex's wife Martha (Deb Snyder) is a writer who is dealing with the stress of publishing her first novel, in addition to watching over her six-year-old son. Mr. Chu is very much at odds with American customs and technology, and he even gets lost when he tries to take a walk; Martha soon feels as if she's watching over two children rather than one, while Mr. Chu resents his loss of dignity and independence. Eventually, he tries to strike out on his own and get a job, but the harder he tries to feel at home in New York, the more alien he seems. Ang Lee and Sihung Lung would team up again on Lee's next two films, The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sihung Lung
- 1992
When the Native peoples of the U.S. are shown to possess something that government or big business wants, long-standing treaties and trust arrangements going back for centuries pose no obstacle; the Indians must go. That was as true in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Reservation as it was in the early 19th century, when the discovery of gold in the Appalachians resulted in the displacement of the Cherokee and other tribes from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. In 1975, the object of the second land-grab in less than a century directed against the Oglala Sioux was once again mineral wealth. The U.S. government grew alarmed at efforts by members of the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) to protest the sale of tribal lands to corporations and instituted a number of subversive actions using the government-controlled tribal government as its proxy. During the resulting conflicts, two F.B.I. agents were killed, quite possibly by gangs funded by the government. However, these killings supplied the pretext that it had long sought for the government to arrest many of A.I.M.'s leaders. Leonard Peltier was one of those leaders, and he was convicted on what even the government prosecutors later admitted were trumped-up charges. Despite that incredible fact, he remains in prison serving two consecutive life sentences. This documentary tells his story and includes interviews with Peltier himself, as well as author Peter Mathiessen and others either involved with or knowledgeable about America's best-known political prisoner. It differs from the other well-known documentary covering many of these same issues Incident at Oglala by providing a more wide-ranging overview. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1992
Consumed by visions of prosperity and clean, attractive cities, Silva travels to New York City from Poland with all the cash she can scrape together in her purse, speaking not one word of English. Once there, she swiftly falls prey to an aggressive con artist, and sees nothing but the dingy crime-filled streets which represent New York at its worst. Refusing to be ignored by the man who took her money, she hounds him until he takes her to bed with him, and then her relationships expand to include the creep's cousin. At no point is a good time had by anyone. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Schrader, Dani Levy, (more)
Alexandre Rockwell's quirky autobiographical comedy stars Steve Buscemi as Adolpho Rollo, a would-be screenwriter who is obsessed with getting his 500-page script "Unconditional Surrender" produced. Desperate for money, he places an ad for financial backing, which is answered by con man Joe (Seymour Cassel). The film was shot in color, but was released theatrically in black & white. Both verisions eventually made their way to home video release. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassel, (more)
- 1991
- NC17
This film has become infamous thanks to the efforts of the Rev. Donald Wildmon, who publicly questioned the fact that NEA dollars were spent on this "filth." While Wildmon's point was certainly overstated, this debut feature from Todd Haynes is quite disturbing. The Poison in question is sex, and its toxic effects are explored in three segments which have been shuffled together like a deck of cards. "Hero" is a pseudo-documentary about a seven-year-old boy who shoots his father and then ascends into the sky. "Horror" is a mad-scientist story filmed like a Roger Corman "B"-movie. The scientist in question has managed to distill the essence of the human sex drive into a test tube. When he inadvertently drinks it, he turns into a leprous monster, terrorizing the city. "Homo" is a gay love story set in a prison. All three segments are based on the writings of Jean Genet. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Larry Maxwell, Edith Meeks, (more)
Tom Kalin directed this cool and aloof black-and-white study of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case, a case told before in two previous films -- Rope and Compulsion. In 1924, in Chicago, Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, two 18-year-olds, kidnapped and murdered the 13-year-old Bobby Franks, immediately killing him and then stuffing his naked body up a culvert. The motive for the crime was simply that they wanted to prove to themselves that they were smart enough to get away with it. The previous film versions downplayed Leopold and Loeb's homosexuality, but Kalin's version plays it up into a psychosexual motif. Loeb (Daniel Schlachet) is the calculating intellectual, while Leopold (Craig Chester), the amateur ornithologist, is the emotional and weak one. In love with Loeb, Leopold is willing to do anything for him, and when Leob uses the withholding of sex as a prompt, Leopold is even willing to commit murder to have his sexual desires satisfied by Loeb. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Schlachet, Craig Chester, (more)
- 1991
Director Jan Oxenberg's purpose for making Thank You and Good Night was to seek out an answer to the question, "What is this thing called death?" The subject of this documentary is Oxenberg's grandmother Mae Joffe, who was dying of cancer when the film was made. In between Joffe's candid and sometimes quite funny observations, Oxenberg offers dramatized flashbacks to her childhood experiences with her grandmother. These sequences, along with a fantasy quiz show, are "enacted" with cardboard cutouts made from family photographs. Filmed in 1991, Thank You and Good Night received its national premiere on May 19, 1993, as an installment of PBS' American Playhouse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1990
The Golden Boat, the first American production from internationally acclaimed director Raul Ruiz, is a dry-humored, surreal tale set in downtown Manhattan. Young writer Israel Williams (Federico Muchnik) encounters a wounded man on the street. Though he has been stabbed several times over, the man seems unaffected by his wounds and refuses to go to a doctor. Instead, he asks Israel to help find his estranged son. Israel reluctantly agrees but is met with disbelief and suspicion from the supposed son, a South American television star. Things become dangerously complicated when the old man proves to be a murderer with shady criminal and political connections. Israel soon becomes lost in a strange world of international celebrities, Marxist operatives, and postmodern literary critics. The film deconstructs traditional techniques, relying instead on unconventional cinematography, jarring sound design, and eccentric patterns of recurring imagery, including several pairs of boots that reappear in odd places throughout the film. Ruiz made The Golden Boat on a shoestring budget, working in collaboration with The Kitchen, an avant-garde theatre group. Several notable members of the New York art scene make cameos, including director Jim Jarmusch and writer Kathy Acker. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Kirby, Jim Jarmusch, (more)
