All 58 reviews in alphabetical order by title
Contents
"About A Boy" "About Schmidt" "Adam" "Adaptation" "Air Force One" "AI: Artificial Intelligence" "Alexander" "Amazing Grace" "Amélie" "American Beauty" "American Gangster" "America's Sweethearts" "Analyze This" "Angels & Demons" "Anger Management" "Apollo 13" "Armageddon" "The Assassination Of Jesse James" "Atonement" "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" "Avatar" "The Aviator" "AVP: Alien Vs Predator" "The Baader-Meinhof Complex "Babel" "Bagdad Cafe" "Batman Begins" "Baise-Moi" "Beautiful Girls" "A Beautiful Mind" "Becoming Jane" "Behind Enemy Lines" "Being John Malkovich" "Bend It Like Beckham" "Bhaji On The Beach" "Big Fish" "Billy Elliot" "Black Hawk Down" "Blue Velvet" "Bobby" "Borat" "Bound" "The Bourne Identity" "The Bourne Supremacy" "The Bourne Ultimatum" "Boys Don't Cry" "Bread And Roses" "Breaking And Entering" "Brick Lane" "Bride And Prejudice" "Brideshead Revisited" "Bridget Jones's Diary" "Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason" "Brokeback Mountain" "Bruce Almighty" "Brüno" "Buena Vista Social Club" "Burn After Reading"
Forget the Hugh Grant of "Four Weddings And A Funeral" or "Notting Hill", all foppy-haired, mumbling and well-intentioned. Here, as thirty-something Will Freeman - a north Londoner living off the earnings of his father's one-hit Christmas wonder - he looks and sounds altogether different: shorter, spikier hair, cynical and selfish manner, and outspoken to the point of cruelty. Who is going to reform such a self-centred character? Why, the boy, of course - 12 year old Marcus played with style by young Nicholas Hoult.
Such an unlikely pairing comes about when Will hits on the idea of hitting on available and vulnerable women by attending a single-parents self-help group - Single Parents Alone Together or SPAT - as a make-believe single father of a son. Cue relationships of sorts with three of them: Marcus's wacky mother, portrayed by Toni Collette looking a million miles from her break-through role in "Muriel's Wedding", an Irish blonde played by Victoria Smurfit (familiar to British viewers of the television series "Cold Feet"), and a dark-haired sophisticate acted by Rachel Weisz from "The Mummy" series.
No prizes for guessing who Will's going to finish up with but, along the way, this a thoroughly entertaining movie, involving both pathos and bathos and both funny and feel-good. Credit goes to the Americans Chris and Paul Weitz, responsible for direction and screenplay, who have stayed close to the spirit of the book on which the film is based, written by British novelist Nick Hornby. Indeed this is an unusually wordy film with parallel voice-overs from Will and Marcus that complement effectively the amusing and sharp visuals.
Footnote: A couple of decades ago, I was a single parent with a real son and went to a north London single parents group called Gingerbread. I can confirm that it's an opportunity for a single man to meet single women and, in my case, she actually had three children. Whatever happened to you, Hazel?
Link: official web site click here
This is certainly not your standard Hollywood fare. For a start, the central character is not a pubescent teenager or a comic strip super-hero, but a former insurance man become brutally aware of the fragility - and indeed the futility - of his life. Recently retired, even more recently widowed and awaiting his daughter's wedding to a man he believes to be a nincompoop, 66 year old Warren Schmidt of Omaha, Nebraska is - in the words of one woman he meets on the road with his huge trailer home - "a sad, sad man".
As the eponymous loner, Jack Nicholson gives one of the finest performances of his long and distinguished career, a magnificently understated portrayal in which a look, a grimace or a tear conveys so much about his inner torment and deep melancholy. He is supported by a series of finely-observed vignettes, none better than that from Kathy Bates who bravely reveals her less than svelte-like body. There is no simple resolution to Schmidt's dilemma, but he is ultimately given an insight into how even his selfish life has made a difference.
Full of pathos and wry humour, great credit then to Louis Begley who authored the original novel and to Alexander Payne who co-wrote the script and directed. We need more character-driven movies like this which reflect life as most of us find it - frequently disappointing but never too late to redeem.
Link: official web site click here
The chances of you seeing this movie on the big screen are close to zilch since it's had such a limited cinematic release, so be sure to catch it on televsion or DVD because it is a rom-com with a special edge. Although the couple are young Americans in New York City, it is the British Hugh Dancy who gives an excellent performance as the eponymous IT professional and amateur stargazer who suffers badly from Asperger's Syndrome, while it is the Australian actress Rose Byrne who is delightful as the young woman willing to make the effort to understand him. The treatment of AS is handled sensitively, but not without humour, and the ending avoids the temptation to be trite. A real accomplishment then for the American Max Meyer who both wrote and directed and whose previous writing and directing has been almost entirely for the theatre.
Link: official web site click here
A news item about the arrest of an American orchid thief becomes an article for the "New Yorker" magazine which becomes a successful book which in turn is optioned for a film. The scriptwriter finds it so difficult to turn the book into a screenplay that he finishes up turning the film into an account of his struggle to adapt the book with himself as a central character in the movie. Confused? Well, this is the writer (Charlie Kaufman) and the director (Spike Jonze) that created the critically-acclaimed "Being John Malkovich" [for review click here], so this Russian doll of a movie is perhaps not a total surprise - but does it work?
It is certainly pretentious and self-indulgent and the ending is a disappointment, but what lifts the film into a must-see category is the superb performances of its actors. I am an enormous fan of Meryl Streep (who plays the author of The Orchid Thief") and "Adaptation plus "The Hours" makes this is a great time for us devotees; I don't always like Nicolas Cage, but he is impressive as both Kaufman and his (fictional) twin brother; however, the revelation is Chris Cooper who shines as a man whose life is defined by his absolute passion for orchids.
Link: official web site click here
This is an above-average action thriller from Wolfgang Petersen who made "In The Line Of Fire". Harrison Ford is excellent as the U S President held hostage aboard the Boeing 747 with Gary Oldman chilling as the renegade Russian nationalist. It is all very one-dimensional and far-fetched with a weak script and obvious use of models, but nevertheless very well-crafted and entertaining.
The late Stanley Kubrick spent a long time developing this project, but it was Steven Spielberg who brought it to the screen as both writer and director. These mixed antecedents probably explain the uneven nature of this over-long and very disappointing work. The first and third segments are sickly sentimental and clearly come straight from the creator of “E.T.”, while the middle third represents a much more violent and dystopian world that owes more to the director of “Clockwork Orange”.
Young Haley Joel Osment (“The Sixth Sense”) is perfectly cast as David, the latter-day Pinocchio – a super-sophisticated robot who just wants to be a real boy – and Jude Law looks good as a robotic gigolo. There is even an mechanical teddy bear that will delight young viewers, but irritate others who will think that a miniature Ewok has wandered in off the set of “Return Of The Jedi”.
Certainly I would have liked more science and less schmaltz. Also I saw the movie just five days after the destruction of New York’s World Trade Center and my enjoyment of the film was not helped by an unsettling shot where the tops of the towers appear above the flood waters caused by melted ice caps.
Link: official web site click here
I had awaited this movie eagerly: the story of a man who conquered most of the known world by the time he was 25 is truly epic; I have recently read one of the many new biographies of the Macedonian warrior [for review click here]; in his time, director Oliver Stone has produced some fine work; and here he has spent no less than $150M, making it Europe's most costly film. One could not fail to be aware of the panning given the work by the critics, but I figured that it really couldn't be that bad. But, believe me, it is. "Gladiator" showed what an epic should look like and "Troy" was a good effort, but Stone - who, at his best, has given us such impressive work as "Salvador", "Platoon" and "Wall Street" - will be fortunate to survive this plodding and pedestrian débâcle. The first hour is utterly tedious and one cries out for the sort of battle seqeunce which opened "Gladiator" while, towards, the sprawling end, we seem to be revisiting the manic ending of "Apocalyse Now" without Brando's style.
So, when did it go wrong? Well, seemingly at every stage of the production process. First, Stone - and his producer Moritz Borman - rushed the whole thing in order to beat a rival production (now unlikely to reach the screen) planned by Australian director Baz Luhrmann. Then the script - co-authored by Stone himself - overdoes the theme of Alexander's bi-sexuality which is death at the US box office and becomes somewhat histrionic for the rest of the world. Some of the casting is odd - most notably the choice of Angelina Jolie (only one year older than Colin Farrell in the eponymous role) to play Alexander's mother. Next we have the appalling decision to have most of the lead actors deploy incongruous Irish accents just because lead Colin Farrell (who can do other accents) hails from the emerald isle. The whole structure is a disaster with a boring, and largely redundant, narration, confusing flashbacks, and a total bum-numbing, mind-bending length of just under three hours. Finally the editing is all wrong, as Stone made three major cuts to slice away close to an hour, but slashed too little and disjointedly. The essence of cinema is storytelling and this work utterly lacks a compelling narrative which, given the heroic feats and complex character of the man, is a special kind of achievement.
Surely the film has some redeeming features? Well, the two battle sequences - the defeat of Darius and his superior forces at Gaugamela and the encounter with Indians and elephants at Hydaspes in India - are genuinely large-scale and exciting, although it is difficult to follow Alexander's tactics. The Moroccan and Thailand locations are exotic, the richly-designed sets are grand and the CGI creations, especially of the glory of Babylon, are well done. The attention to historic and military detail is commendable and thanks to Oxford academic Robin Lane Fox who gets to lead the battle charges as a reward. Angelina Jolie has the best accent (not Irish) and gives the best performance. But this is far from enough to justify the price of a theatre ticket. Can the work be rescued for the DVD or is it destined to sink like Stone? Often the DVD offers us a longer version of the movie, but this time we need a shorter, reordered account with a linear narrative, less talk and much more action.
William Wilberforce headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for 26 years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807. To mark the 200th anniversary of the Act, this film tells his story and takes its title from the hymn penned by his mentor, John Newton, a slave ship captain turned repentant priest. Ioan Gruffudd plays the MP and Albert Finney is the priest, while other cast members include Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon and Romola Garai. Sadly this is a work where the whole is less than the parts: a worthy cause is portrayed by some fine actors but the overall product is rather awkward and leaden.
Link: biography of William Wilberforce click here
It‘s very unusual for a French-speaking film to break into the Anglo-Saxon world, but this quirky Gallic offering has done it. Some American audiences may find the sub-titles and the saccharine-sweet treatment difficult to swallow, but most British viewers should manage to cope. After all, the Paris portrayed here is the kind of innocent charm that so many of us seek on our holidays there; all the characters are eccentric and we are noted for our tolerance of eccentricity; and, after all, the eponymous role was originally written for the British actress Emily Watson (hence the name).
In fact, following the stunning success of the movie in its home land, it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the lead role than the gamine newcomer 23 year old Audrey Tautou who gives a wonderful performance as the Montmatre waitress Amélie Poulain who wants to escape her own withdrawal from so much of life by giving some pleasure to so many other lives (but anonymously). In the process, she discovers love in the odd form of a porn-shop worker who spends his time collecting torn-up photo booth pictures (Matthieu Kassovitz).
The bizarre story-line and the inventive shooting are the work of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, previously known for “Delicatessen”, “The City Of Lost Children” and “Alien: Resurrection” (only the last of which I have seen). The – possibly unfashionable - message of the movie is that all of us need a little magic in our lives and, if we can be the one to bring some of that magic to some other lives, then our own will be enriched along the way. Escapism par excellence.
What a pleasure to see such an intelligently scripted and superbly acted film that grips you with every scene. The originators of this impressive work are surprising – it is the cinematic debut of both British director Sam Mendes and American scriptwriter Alan Ball and the offering of the Dreamworks studio which originally gave us “The Peacemaker”.
I’m a fan of Kevin Spacey and much admired his performances in “The Usual Suspects”, “L.A. Confidential” and “The Negotiator”. Here he gives an Oscar-worthy showing as 42 year old Lester Burnham, a nondescript suburbanite just waiting to explode. Annette Bening is excellent as his brittle wife Carolyn and there are some fine performances from youngsters Thora Birch, as his damaged daughter Jane, and Mena Suvari, as the flirtatious muse who inspires several fantasy sequences involving large, red rose petals.
It’s not spoiling the movie to reveal that, like the classic “Sunset Boulevard”, the narrator is a dead guy – but how and why he is killed has to wait until the closing moments. By turns hilarious, poignant and shocking, “American Beauty” conveys perceptively and powerfully the seething anger that lies just below the surface of so many stale relationships.
The narrative of this film is so incredible that, if it were not all true, it would seem utterly far-fetched. A black hoodlum from the American South beats the New York Mafia at their own game by setting up a direct line of supply of high grade heroin from sources in the jungles of Thailand using for delivery the resources of the US Army and ultimately even the coffins of dead GIs from Vietnam. He is brought down by a cop who once passed up the opportunity to seize for himself a million dollars in unmarked notes and, when he eventually takes down the gangster, they work together to bring to book two-thirds of the New York Police vice department before the cop becomes his lawyer and even his friend.
This utterly gripping tale is told by director Ridley Scott (now a venerable 70) in fast-moving and compelling scenes that make the two and three-quarter hours of the movie zip by. The eponymous drug king Frank Lucas is played brilliantly by Denzel Washington who manages to make an explosively violent and totally manipulative crook charismatic and even charming. His nemesis - a characteristically superb Russell Crowe - is Richie Roberts, a relatively lowly cop from New Jersey who has made a mess of his private life and happens to be quietly Jewish. These two seemingly opposite characters only meet towards the end of the film when they clearly form a certain respect and liking for one another. Their actual encounter comes in a climactic scene that echoes the conclusion of "The Godfather Part I" except that this time, while the big man is at church, it is not his opponents but his empire which is taken down.
This is film-making of the highest order and should not be missed.
Links:
Wikipedia page on Frank Lucas click here
Wikipedia page on Richie Roberts click here
The magazine article that inspired the film click here
So much talent in one film; so little to show for it. The sweethearts in question are former partners and fellow movie stars Eddie (talented John Cusack) and Gwen (a weak Catherine Zeta Jones) and those who are trying to get them back together to launch their last (unseen) film are Gwen's sister Kiki (the always captivating Julie Roberts) and PR man Lee (co-writer Billy Crystal who can be very funny). As if that wasn't enough ability around, there's Christopher Walken, Stanley Tucci and Hank Azaria, each of whom can light up a movie.
So where did director Joe Roth go so wrong that it all turned out so weak? The key failure has to be the script (the other co-writer was Peter Tolan). The work can never make up its mind whether it is a traditional romantic comedy or a cruel satire on the falsehood of Hollywood - so it misses both marks and leaves one just disappointed.
Sometimes you don’t want to psychoanalyze a film; you just want a good laugh; and here’s a very funny movie that fits the bill. We all know that Robert De Niro is a consummate actor – what we didn’t know was that he has real comedic talent, as evidenced by this hilarious performance as a mobster suffering from panic attacks in a brilliant parody of so many of his earlier tough guy roles. Billy Crystal is back on form as a psychiatrist pressed into service as the Mafia man’s shrink and some of the best scenes are when De Niro and Crystal adopt elements of the other’s character.
Link: official web site click here
Three years after the Dan Brown novel "The Da Vinci Code" appeared as a film which took a staggering $760 million, another of his books receives the large screen treatment. Although Brown wrote "Angels & Demons" first, the film version represents this story, which is sympathetic to the Catholic Church, as following "The Da Vinci Code" which was seen as hostile to the Church. Whatever the difference in stance towards Catholicism, Brown's work is always terribly formulaic: a twisting plot set over a matter of hours, lots of symbols and signs, considerable running, much desecration of the flesh, the counterbalancing of religion and science, minimal characterisation, and changing perception of key characters. This time it's all cardinals, cathedrals, crypts and catacombs plus a camerlengo scattered over central Rome and the Vatican.
Again Tom Hanks as the Harvard symbologist does his best with a wooden script (but a better haircut) - at least "Angels & Demons" is less wordy than "The Da Vinci Code". Again there is only one female character - this time Italian physicist Vittoria Vetra (Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer). Scottish Ewan McGregor (who struggles to affect a Northern Irish accent), German Armin Mueller-Stahl and Swedish Stellan Skarsgård each play Vatican officials who may be an angel or a demon. It's hard to work out which is the greatest threat: the Illuminati, an anti-matter bomb or the implausibilities of the plot. Papal bull or curate's egg? - you decide. It's a miracle that it works at all, but if you have faith, I confess that it's really quite an entertaining piece of hokum.
Link: official web site click here
Adam Sandler gives an uncharacteristically understated performance as Dave Buznick, a man with his emotions under tight control, even when it comes to committing to his long-term girlfriend (Marisa Tomei). For his part, Jack Nicholson is as manic as ever as Dr Buddy Rydell, an anger management therapist who gives every impression of being certifiably insane. This is not so humourless that one is angry at having paid the price of a cinema ticket, but it is far less funny that reviews from the US had suggested. Ever since I saw her in "My Cousin Vinny", I've thought that Tomei was a real talent and she - and many others - are underused in a movie that makes one smirk more than smile.
Link: official web site click here
I was in my teens and early twenties during the Apollo space missions and followed the exploits with considerable interest, so the movies "The Right Stuff" - a more critical account of the early space programme - and "Apollo 13" - a more patriotic account of recovery from seeming disaster - really appealed to me. In the latter case, director Ron Howard does an excellent job of creating a documentary feel for the action and sustains the tension throughout, even through we know the fortunate outcome. Amazingly Howard used no NASA footage and the scenes of weighlessness were achieved through flights in a KC-135 aircrat. Tom Hanks is convincing as the mission's commander Jim Lovell, while Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon give decent support as fellow crew members Fed Haise and John Swigert respectively.
Link: NASA account of mission click here
Why do so many Hollywood movie come in pairs? Essentially this is the same story as “Deep Impact” released just a few months earlier: an asteroid is about to hit the earth and destroy all humankind (pretty serious, huh?). This time Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck lead drilling teams who plan to land on the asteroid and blow it apart with a nuclear bomb. Do they succeed? Well, we’re still here aren’t we? Like all such films, it is all very implausible but, of all the summer 1998 science fiction blockbusters (“Deep Impact” itself, “Lost In Space” & “Godzilla”), this is the best. It has stars, action, humour, music, brilliant pacing and terrific special effects (especially the destruction of New York and Paris). A little-known fact: at the cinema, the climax of “Armageddon” scored a record 110 decibels (compared to a recommended maximum noise level in the US of 87).
Link: Ben Affleck's own site click here
“The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford”
The lengthy title makes abundantly clear the essence of the narrative but the surprise comes in the sheer style in which the plot unfolds. Long (153 minutes) and often slow, this elegiac tale is set out in a consummate piece of filmmaking with striking geography (it was shot in Canada) and superb technical skill, especially in the framing and lighting of scenes.
For this archetypal American genre movie, New Zealander Andrew Dominik was both director and writer, while the British Roger Deakin was director of photography. The charismatic Brad Pitt plays the outlaw with a reputation akin to Robin Hood but a complex pyschology, while Casey Affleck is outstanding as the one-time idoliser turned cool killer.
Link: Wikipedia page on Jesse James click here
It is such a rarity, but such a delight, when an accomplished novel is successfully transcribed to the screen. I was enormously impressed by the exquisite prose of Ian McEwan's work "Atonement" [for my review click here] and anxious about how it would fare as a movie, but the result is a triumph. Director 35 year old Joe Wright - whose only previous direction was the most enjoyable "Pride And Prejudice" - and screenwriter Christopher Hampton (helped by cinematographer Seamus McGarvey) have crafted a fine adaption which is faithful to the novel but makes impressive use of the film medium to give us a new insight into the work.
At one level, this is an achingly poignant love story centred on the upper class Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley in one of her best performances to date in a role where her thinness is actually appropriate) and the son of the family's cleaning women Robbie Turner (James McAvoy in a richly textured offering with no hint of his natural Scottish brogue). But, at an another (deeper) level, this is a narrative of betrayal and atonement by Cecilia's younger sister Briony - played successively by Saoirse Ronan as the pubescent and overly-dramatic 13 year old, by Romola Garai as the tortured 18 year old, and by screen legend Vanessa Redgrave as the 77 year old author.
No film can replicate or emulate the prose of a novel but "Atonement" the movie scores in other ways: an incessant and insistent typewriter-laden score, detailed invocation of period clothing and settings, repetition of crucial scenes from different viewpoints, a sharper, clearer and more emotional ending, and - above all - a stunning, lengthy steadicam shot of the hell on earth beach scene at Dunkirk. This is almost as good as cinema gets.
Link: official web site click here
“Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”
I can’t believe that I went to see this movie, but our local multiplex had nothing better on that I hadn’t seen before, and anyway I was curious to see how Mike Myers could be rivalling George Lucas at the box office. The film lived down to my worst expectations – it is simply dreadful. I suppose that Canadian Myers has a certain talent: he plays the eponymous secret agent, the villain Dr Evil, and a disgusting character called Fat Bastard as well as co-writing the screenplay. However, I’m not well-disposed towards spoofs of 60s spy films to begin with – I enjoyed the originals too much at the time and the spoofing commenced almost immediately anyway (see “our Man Flint” as long ago as 1965).
What I really hate about “Powers” is the juvenile nature of the jokes which seem to focus mainly around the penis and the anus (“Oh, behave!). This childish type of cinematic humour really got under way with “Dumb And Dumber”, took a further leap downwards with “There’s Something About Mary”, and seems to have reached its nadir (I hope) with the two “Powers” films, but I suppose we should never forget that the core of the audience for a Hollywood movie is pubescent Americans.
Link: official web site click here
Is this the greatest movie ever made? Well, no. But it's the most expensive in the history of the cinema (a reported $230M), it's going to be one of the biggest revenue earners in the history of films (already the fastest ever to make $1B), it's technologically groundbreaking, and we've waited 12 years (since "Titantic") for writer and director James Cameron to return to our cinemas. All of which makes it something really special. I saw it in both 3D and IMAX on the largest screen in Britain (BFI in central London) and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is not "Lawrence Of Arabia" but it is immensely entertaining and its glorious imagery lives in the mind long after viewing.
Set in 2154 entirely on a planet unoriginally called Pandora which uniquely houses a special energy source inanely named Unobtainium, much of the interaction between the humans - disabled ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and scientist Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) - and the 10 foot tall, blue-skinned, flat-nosed locals the Na'vi - most notably Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) - comes through the adoption by the humans of avatars which only operate when they are in induced sleep.
There was scope here to explore what it means to be human and what treatment we should accord not just 'tribal' people but artificial creations, but subtlety is not Cameron's forte. Instead we have largely stereotypical characters - most especially in the economically-driven company man and the psychotic warrior colonel - with heavy dialogue and no plot surprises. The messages are very New Age spiritual, with lots of talk of energy and deity, and eco-friendly in a form that is almost Gaia-like, while the military treatment of the Na'vi makes this a sci-fi version of "Dances With Wolves" and the talk of fighting "terror with terror" and use of "shock and awe" clearly relates to recent American action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But, heh, visually this is a stunning work with a fantastical world of flora and fauna and lots of high-tech gadgetry wonderfully created in three dimensions that should be seen on the biggest screen you can visit. There is enough action and excitement to fill the more than two and a half hours and make this a movie to remember and - like "Titantic" - worth revisiting.
Link: official web site click here
Any movie directed by Martin Scorsese has to be worth watching and this ambitious, if flawed, biopic of Howard Hughes is certainly well worth the price of a cinema ticket. As he did in "Gangs Of New York", Scorsese works with Leonard DiCaprio who here has the most challenging role of his career so far as the eponymous businessman, womaniser, flyboy, movie mogul, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder-sufferer. Thirty-year old DiCaprio works hard at the role and captures the manic energy, tortured expression and obsessive mannerisms of Hughes, but ultimately his boyish looks make this less than ideal casting. Except for a brief and unsatisfactory childhood scene, the film covers only the twenty years 1927-1947 of Hughes' 70 years, a period which enables Scorsese to present a remarkably sympathetic portrait of this complex character which underlines his great vision and commitment to competition - twin virtues of modern-day capitalism. The man's tyrannical behaviour is excused as the product of genius, while his anti-semitism and near fascist politics are overlooked entirely.
Cinema is first and foremost a visual medium and this movie is wonderful to look at. The grand sets and contemporary clothing - enhanced by music of the period - provide a rich evocation of the era, while the appearance in the narrative of so many movie stars of the time enhances the feeling that we have stepped back to a time when Americans were assuming leadership of the world. The realisations of these famous personages is uneven: while Cate Blanchett is brilliant as Katherine Hepburn and a paunchy Alec Baldwin convincing as Juan Trip, Kate Beckinsale is weak as Ava Gardner and Jude Law is disappointing as Errol Flynn.
The real stars of the movie, in many ways, are the aircraft, most of which are necessarily CGI creations. We feel with Hughes as he films from the sky swirling dog fights for his film "Hell's Angels", takes Hepburn night flying over Los Angeles, sets a new speed record, twice crashes experimental aircraft, and finally lifts the mammoth 'Spruce Goose' a few feet off the water. This film of almost three hours is longer than it should have been, but it is at its most entertaining and exhilerating when it conveys the adrenalin excitement and social transformation of modern aviation.
Link: official web site click here
Sometimes one isn't looking to the cinema for a profound statement on the human condition, but just for sheer entertainment and escapism. If that's all you want, then "AVP" does the trick fine. It takes two successful movie creature franchises with a combined total of six outings and melds them together in a 'clash of the titans' with minimal plotting and weak dialogue but sustained, fast-moving action. Sigourney Weaver and Arnold Schwarzenegger are nowhere in sight and the cast is unknown - except for a neat appearance by a much older Lance Henrikson whom we saw in two of the "Alien" films - so the money can go on sets and special effects. The final scene sets us up for a sequel which I suspect the accountants will find is a temptation too hard to resist.
Formally named the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion in German), this German urban terrorist group - at its height in the late 1960s and 1970s but only formally dissolved in 1998 - was more commonly referred to by the names of two of its leaders, Andreas Baader (played here by Moritz Bleibtreu) and Ulrike Meinhof (portrayed by Martina Gedeck). This is not an easy movement to represent, still less explain, partly because the events are so numerous, partly because the timescales are so long, and above all because the politics behind it and the state reaction to it are morally complex, but this German film makes a very commendable attempt, showing the narrative mainly from the perspective of the group without ever glamorising their actions which resulted in 34 deaths and many injuries.
The script is based on a best-selling book by Stefan Aust, Chief Editor of the German weekly news magazine "Der Spiegel", but considerable credit must go to Uli Edel who both co-wrote and directed this compelling work that tries to face up honestly to a terribly painful period of post-war German history. It is a long film (two and a half hours) and sometimes confusing, with plenty of graphic violence, hard language and some nudity, but it raises sharp questions that still resonate today about the idealism of the young, the expression of political protest, and the role of the media and the police in confronting such anger and disillusionment.
Link: Wikipedia page on the RAF click here
This is not an easy work for the viewer in either structure or subject matter, but it is thoughtful and thought-inspiring and contains many impressive performances.
Scripted by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Mexicans who worked together on "21 Grams"), this is a film in four languages (English, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese) linking four families (American, Mexican, Moroccan and Japanese) on three continents (America, Africa and Asia) told in 24 non-chronological chapters. The link is a hunting rifle which was made in the USA, bought in Japan, and given away in Morocco.
Cate Blanchett is the American tourist on holiday in Morocco who is hit by a bullet from the rifle, while Brad Pitt is her husband in a deeply fractured marriage. Their two children are taken to a wedding in Mexico by their maid (Adriana Barraza) and her nephew (Gael García Bernal) while, over in Japan, the original owner of the weapon (Kôji Yakusho) struggles to cope with the suicide of his wife and the estrangement of his deaf-mute teenage daughter (Rinko Kikuchi).
Some of the characters are dealt with by authority with respect and courtesy, but others are handled with contempt and even brutality. All these lives are inter-connected but some seem to matter more in an unequal and unfair world bedevilled by a lack of communication at so many levels - truly a modern-day tower of Babel. An ambitous and intelligent work that somehow feels sadly soulless.
"Bagdad Cafe" - which was originally released as "Out Of Rosenheim" - has nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq, being set in California. It is in the 'stranger comes into town' genre. But what a stanger: well-built Jasmin from Rosenheim in Germany (ably played by Marianne Sägebrecht). And what a 'town': just a run-down diner and rusty gas pump by the side of a dusty highway, the place populated by a strange bunch of wacky characters who include the irascible cafe owner Brenda (CCH Pounder) and the aged set painter Rudi (68 year old Jack Palance). In a quirky but engaging tale, Jasmin both metaphorically and literally brings both magic and harmony to this disparate community, in the process discovering a new role and home for herself.
I'm a bit of a sucker for superhero films and Batman has a kind of credibility as the superhero without superpowers, so I happily saw the two Tim Burton offerings ("Batman" & "Batman Returns") and even the pair of inferior Joel Schumacher works ("Batman Forever" & "Batman & Robin"). I wouldn't have expected the British director Christopher Nolan ("Memento" & "Insominia") as the choice to revive the franchise, but the return to the origins of the story - a mere 12 frames in Bob Kane's 1939 comic strip - and the much darker, more psychological approach work really well and result in a superior and entertaining movie.
Christian Bale - whom I first saw as a child in "Empire Of The Son" - is a credibly brooding Batman/Bruce Wayne, but Tom Cruise's current squeeze Katie Holmes is rather weak as his conscience cum love interest. One distinguishing feature of this fifth outing for the caped crusader is the impressive line-up of support actors who include the British Michael Caine as Wayne's Cockney butler, Tom Wilkinson as the head hood, and Gary Oldman as the future Commisioner Gordon (a rare opportunity for Oldman to play a good guy) plus Rutger Hauer and Morgan Freeman, who are employees of Waynes Enterprises with very different motivations, and Liam Neeson of the mysterious League of Shadows.
In any superhero movie, the non-human stars are the gadgets and here "BB" offers some good-looking stuff and an original angle on how Wayne acquires it all. The Batmobile is very different from previous films - a kind of ultra-rugged Humvee that smashes all in its path. Some, at least, of the reported $180 that the movie cost to make has obviously gone on this hardware with a lot more on the stylistic sets of Gotham City, Wayne Manor and a Tibetan retreat. The rousing soundtrack from Hans Zimmer adds to the atmosphere. In short, this is a visually and aesthetically satisfying outing and, Oldman's final reference to the Joker, is either Nolan's bid for a sequel or a clever link to the 1989 Jack Nicholson role.
In some 30 years of cinema-going, this is just about the most graphically violent and sexually explicit 'mainstream' movie in my experience. Of course, it's French (the title translates as "Rape Me"). More surprisingly, it is written and directed by two women, the novelist Virginie Despentes (on whose book it is based) and the pornographic film-maker Coralie Trinh Thi. In the UK, the film obtained an '18' certificate after the British Board of Film Classification cut 10 seconds from the early brutal rape scene.
This extreme and shocking version of the "Thelma And Louise" tale sees Manu of north African origin (Raffaëla Anderson) and middle-class Nadine (Karen Bach) on an orgiastic journey of sex and violence, unrelieved by any sympathetic characters, unhinded by any police action, and with no obvious purpose. It is simply impossible to divine what the makers were trying to tell us, but clearly - like their principal characters - they are very damaged and very angry.
This is a film which deserves to be better known. It may be small - no special effects, no car chases, no 'A' list stars - but it has a sparkling script by Scott Rosenberg and an impressive ensemble cast that includes Matt Dillon, Timothy Hutton, Uma Thurman, Mira Sorvino, Rosie O'Donnell and young Natalie Portman. Told over a few days in a snown-threwn winter, this is the tale of five male friends in their late 20s who all went to high school together in small-town America and are now struggling to come to terms with their relationships with women. O'Donnell gives the best outburst while, unlikely though it sounds, the relationship between Hutton and Portman is the most touching. The inter-related stories are well-handled by director Ted Demme who at the time was only a little older than his characters.
Mental illness often makes compelling cinema - think of "Rain Man" or "Shine". Now both sides of the Atlantic have produced new movies on this theme, looking at the effect of such illness on brilliant and famous individuals: from the UK there is "Iris" portraying Alzheimer's Disease and from the US comes "A Beautiful Mind" examining paranoid schizophrenia.
This latter work is essentially the story of American mathematical genius John Forbes Nash Jnr whose biography of the same name was written by Sylvia Nasar. However, I say 'essentially' because director Ron Howard - known for his 'triumph over adversity' movies ("Apollo 13", "Backdraft", "Parenthood") - has given us a somewhat sentimentalised and sanitised version of a complex life. Nowhere in this film will one learn anything of Nash's homosexuality or importuning, one would never guess about his divorce and remarriage, and we are told nothing of his repressed upbringing or his son's own troubles with schizophrenia.
Having said all this, "A Beautiful Mind" is a must-see movie, primarily because of an outstanding performance from Russell Crowe who plays Nash from his arrival at Princeton in 1947 to his award of the Nobel Prize in 1994. Adopting Nash's West Virginian accent, his ornamental style of speech and mannered mode of movement, this is a character a million miles away from the assured confidence of Maximus in "Gladiator" and will deservedly win him many awards.
Jennifer Connelly is excellent as Nash's wonderfully supportive wife Alicia. Like "Iris", there is not much on the principal's work but, again like "Iris", this is ultimately a love story - an account how a partner can be there when the spouse has literally lost his or her mind. Director Ron Howard skilfully manipulates us, both visually and emotionally, but in a sense all art is manipulative and, if we fall for the trap, it's because we want to. We want the human spirit to survive and succeed - and here it most assuredly does.
Links:
official web site click here
autobiography of John Nash click here
interviews with Sylvia Nasar click here
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that anything on celluloid concerning the English novelist Jane Austen will have an audience. Since her six books have been adapted so many times, it must have seemed a clever pitch to create a movie that looks and sounds so much like these various adaptations but centres instead on Austen's encounter with an Irish lawyer named Tom Lefroy in 1795 when she would only have been 20 and just starting her writings. However, the nature of this relationship is entirely speculative, although the source material - a 2003 book by Jon Spence - would pretend otherwise.
In this unlikely but not impossible tale, Austen is played by the brown-eyed American Anne Hathaway, fresh from her success in "The Devil Wears Prada", and she manages a passable English accent, even if she is rather too pretty for the role. Her suitor is portrayed by the blue-eyed Scot James McAvoy in a very different role from his recent "The Last King Of Scotland" and he too affects an effective English accent, even if he is too short for her. The always splendid Maggie Smith and Julie Walters are in supporting roles that are all too easy for them.
In the film, Austen assures us that "My characters will have all that they desire" - but here we don't. This is a costume drama in which the costumes are more convincing than the drama. The whole thing is sadly too pedestrian and predictable, although it looks wonderful, even if it is rural Ireland standing in for England's Hampshire.
It often happens that films come in pairs and, in the same month on British screens, we have "Behind Enemy Lines" and "Black Hawk Down", two movies featuring rescues of American servicemen from policing missions in distant parts of the globe where the US involvement was less than brilliant. Their appearance is not coincidental - it reflects a wish, post the horror of the World Trade Center attack, to show America at its most heroic. Certainly "Behind Enemy Lines" deliver an adrenalin rush, but the style is too gung-ho for it to last long.
The plot concerns the shooting down of an American jet which is 'off mission' over Serb-occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina. The American military has co-operated fully with the hardware, so - in a return to "Top Gun" territory - there are terrificly atmospheric shots of the aircraft carrier that is the crew's base and some really exciting film of the F-18 Hornet that is their 'mount'. Slovakia stands in for Bosnia but fits the bill convincingly.
It was a shrewd move not to cast a star in the lead role, but instead the newcomer, blond-haired, pinched-nosed Owen Wilson. In fact, the only really well-known actor in the movie is Gene Hackman, playing a characteristically gruff role as the admiral of the carrier, but he is sadly under-used, even when stupidly he is shown leading the helicopter rescue operation ("Let's go get our boy!").
First time director John Moore deploys some flashy camera-work and provides plenty of pyrotechnics but, besides the fact that it has been done before (in the more intelligent "Bat 21"), the whole thing is just too formulaic and simplistic to make a lasting impression.
Link: official web site click here
Scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze have produced a brilliantly inventive and utterly surreal movie that will blow your mind. Both hardly recognisable, John Cusack and Cameron Diaz play an out-of-work puppeteer and his animal-loving wife who each manage to make love to the enigmatic Maxine (Catherine Keener) by virtue of entering the mind of an iconic actor (Malkovich as himself).
Entry to the aforesaid portal is at the back of a filing cabinet on floor 7 1/2 of a New York office block, where the clerical staff have to walk around with hunched shoulders because the ceilings are so low, and at one point in the bizarre narrative there are even subtitles in chimpanzee language. Wacky or what? But it works as original, amusing and thought-provoking entertainment of a high order.
This is a sheer delight of a film. OK, the clichéd plot-line is straight out of a cheap comic: young footballer overcomes personal obstacles to score winning goal in final seconds of crucial match. But the twist is that the 18 year old football fanatic is a girl and she's Asian to boot! Parminder Nagra is utterly credible as Jess, inspired by her hero David Beckham and encouraged by her English friend Jules (Keira Knightley) and Irish coach Joe (Rhys Meyers), but thwarted by Indian parents trying hard to maintain their religious and social traditions in west London's Hounslow (just down the road from where I live). Director and co-writer Gurinder Chadha presents a wry and very funny observation of the culture clash and its ultimate resolution in a movie brimming with sharp dialogue and comedic scenes, all enlivened by a superb sound track.
Link: How there was originally a lesbian theme click here
In this cleverly-titled film, the beach is at Blackpool - a seaside resort in the north-west of England that I know well from many political and trade union conferences - while the bhaji is the vegetable savoury consumed by a group of Asian women on a day trip from Birmingham and the argy-bargy or argument that ensues when they confront a variety of generational, gender and culture differences. Writer Meera Syal and director Gurinda Chadha tackle a large agenda with both humour and pathos.
There are tall tales; there are TALL tales; and then there's those told by Edward Bloom (played by Ewan McGregor as a young man and by Albert Finney as an old one). His son (Billy Crudup) believes very little, but just maybe there's more truth in these stores that he or we originally thought - and, in any event, sometimes the embellished truth is what what makes life more colourful and fun. Tim Burton ("Edward Scissorhands" & "Batman") is the perfect director for such an entertaining, even enchanting, world of the strange and the surreal, but I'm never comfortable with British actors as familiar as McGregor, Finney and Helena Bonham Carter adopting American accents and the conclusion is oddly down-beat.
“Flashdance” meets “The Full Monty” in this sentimental but uplifting movie début by British director Stephen Daldry. Jamie Lee - a 13 year old lad from Billingham chosen from 2,000 hopefuls - is outstanding as the 11 year old Billy who discovers a passion for dance that enables him to channel his frustration and anger and to escape the problems of his widowed family and strike-ridden community.
I’ve loved Julie Walters ever since her Mrs Apron character in the television sketch “Acorn Antiques” and here she gives a remarkably assured performance as the boy’s mentor. Gary Lewis is effective as Billy's father, a man of pent-up emotions who cannot understand his son'a strange ambitions. Set against the bitter miners’ dispute of 1984-85 in the north-east of England, there is a great deal of pain in this film, but also much humour, real exhilaration and ultimately personal triumph.
Like "Behind Enemy Lines", this is a movie rushed out in the aftermath of the World Trade Center horror, apparently on the assumption that it will make Americans feel better about themselves. It would seem that, in the US, there has been a "Let's kick ass" response but, to this British viewer at least, such a reaction is hard to fathom. Certainly the film is a celebration of comradeship and heroism, but it reminds us of an appalling military misjudgement by the Americans and a lack of political will by the international community.
It depicts in savagely graphic form the outcome of an October 1993 operation in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu when an attempt to detain henchmen of the local warlord gave rise to a 15-hour "firefight" in which 18 American soldiers lost their lives and more than 70 were injured, while something like 500 Somalians - men, women ands children - were killed. Élite soldiers of the Rangers and Delta Force regiments go in, supported by Black Hawk and Humvee helicopters but, from the start, it is a mess, as one soldier falls from Black Hawk, resulting in it being downed by the local militia. This is war as we have never seen it before on the big screen: brutal and confused combat in city streets and houses where the enemy does not wear a uniform or fight by the rules and rescue is far from hand.
This was always going to be a better work than "Behind Enemy Lines" because it is helmed by one of the finest directors around and presents a very much less 'gung ho' depiction of war. Fresh from his success with the wonderful "Gladiator", British Ridley Scott - the son of a Royal Marine - has taken locations in Morocco and used magnificent camerawork to produce a stunning visual and visceral record based closely on the book by journalist Mark Bowden. Indeed such is the verisimilitude of Scott's action that one can't always hear what is said or understand what is happening.
As I left the London screen where I saw "Black Hawk Down", I found myself in conversation with the cinema attendant who incredibly happened to be a Somalian who was there in 1993. He assured me that the events were worse than shown in the film - we didn't see (fortunately) the parading of the dead Americans through the streets - and the situation is just as bad now as it was then, with four clans controlling different quarters of Mogadishu.
A year after the disastrous American intervention in Somalia, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and we all looked the other way until the appalling events of 11 September 2001. If Scott's film serves to remind us that we cannot forgot the injustice in Somalia - and other parts of Africa - perhaps it will have served a higher purpose than entertainment.
I've always thought of director David Lynch as too weird for me and, so except for "The Elephant Man (1980) and "Dune" (1984), I've stayed away from his work. However, 20 years after its release, I was persuaded to watch "Blue Velvet" when a friend loaned me the DVD. I wasn't wrong: Lynch, who wrote as well as directed this film, is a man with a strange vision and this movie is a very edgy and deeply disturbing work that does not encourage me to tackle any of his other more recent efforts. I guess my problem is that, while I can take a lot of sex and violence in my cinematic experience, I don't like them together. I do have to accept tha tthis is a stylish work and, in Frank Booth (played a truly scary Denis Hooper), we have an unforgettable villain. Hoever, in a work that is so dark, the ending is perhaps too conventionally reassuring and familiar.
Robert Altman may now have shuffled off to the great director's chair in the sky, but his hallmark style of multiple storylines and well-known actors has been picked up here by Emilio Estevez who is writer, director and one of the stars of this compelling work which manages to be both hugely entertaining and strikingly political.
Although there are no less than 22 characters - the majority played by very well-known faces in a star-studded, ensemble piece - all the action occurs on one day (6th June 1968) and in one place (the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles) - the day and the location of the assassination of Robert F Kennedy as he was winning the California Democratic primary in a race that might have taken him back to the White House, this time as president instead of Richard Nixon. Much use of archive footage almost makes RFK himself one of the cast.
The inter-related stories of the staff and occupants of the hotel are told so well that, by the time the movie reaches its inevitable conclusion, we care about the welfare of the fictional charcters almost as much as we tense up at the knowledge of the senseless slaying of RFK. This is one film where it pays to stay for the credits because there are so many interesting photographs of RFK and other historic characters.
In one sense, this is probably a work that resonates particularly powerfully with those who were alive at the time (I was 20 but Estevez was only six). On the other hand, the speeches of RFK referenced by Estevez sound astonishingly contemporary, as he laments America's involvement in a foreign war, the growing threat to the environment, the scourge of working-class poverty, and the divisions between racial groups in the USA. If anything, for a general audience, the political messages are bludgeoned a little too strongly in the final set of speech extracts, but this is a minor complaint.
Martin Sheen, Emilio's father and liberal activist, a man who played John F Kennedy in a television mini-series and fictional president Josiah Barlett in "The West Wing", and one of the wonderful ensemble cast in "Bobby", must be mighty proud of his boy.
... or, to give the movie its full title "Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan". This is genuinely ground-breaking cinema as the most gratuitously offensive work I have seen in over 40 years of film viewing - and yet it is brilliantly inventive in its politically-charged humour with endless visual and verbal gags that hit so many targets right between the eyes. I found it really funny and my wife thought it hysterical, at one point (the naked fight sequence) being in danger of stopping breathing.
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has a huge success here with his portrayal of a Kazakhstan television presenter making a documentary on his examination of American culture and his search for Pamela Anderson. Kazakhstan has no reason to object to this sending up of the nation which can only increase tourism and is as nothing compared to the exposure of the prejudice and hypocrisy of so many sections of American society ranging from fraternity houses to evangelical Christians.
Footnote: Cohen - who is of course Jewish - seemingly makes a whole succession of anti-Semitic jokes while in reality exposing the ridiculous nature of ant-Jewish prejudice and (I am reliably informed by a Jewish friend), along the way, frequently spouts fluent Hebrew.
Few people noticed this film at the time of its release, but it has become particularly interesting as the only work written, produced and directed by the Wachowski brothers (Andy and Larry) before they hit the big time with "The Matrix" [for review click here]. From the teasing title, one might think this is a movie involving bondage but, except for one lesbian love scene, there is no overt sex. Husky-voiced Jennifer Tilly ("The Getaway"), a ganster's girlfriend called Violet, and tatooed Gina Gershon ("Showgirls"), a thief known as Corky, form a partnership to defraud mafia henchman Caesar(Joe Paliano) of $2M in this wonderfully stylish thriller with lively camerawork.
There are echoes here of the 1996 movie "The Long Kiss Goodnight" when Geena Davies plays someone who only gradually discovers that she is a highly trained agent. In this case, it is Matt Damon - as the eponympous Jason Bourne - who has to discover who he is and what he does in a complicated but enjoyable action-filled thriller based on the book by Robert Ludlum. He is assisted by a German free spirit called Marie (played by Franka Potente) who discovers more than she expected when she goes along for the (car) ride. Chris Cooper, Clive Owen and Brian Cox are among those who want Bourne buried. Direction is from Doug Liman, while the screenplay comes from Tony Gilroy.
It's two years later, they are still trying to wipe out Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), and he and we are almost as confused as before with much still unexplained about the CIA's Treadstone operation. Direction this time comes from the British Paul Greengrass, but original director Doug Liman is an executive producer and the writing credits are again split between novelist Robert Ludlum and scriptwriter Tony Gilroy. In this sequel, the action jumps from Goa to Berlin to Moscow (scene of a spectacular car chase) and the camerawork is especially frenetic with plenty of tension and action to entertain. Senior Agency staffer Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) fails to bring Bourne in but, in the final sequence, tells him his real name ...
I saw "The Bourne Identity" (2002) and "The Bourne Supremacy" (2004) on television but enjoyed them so much that I was determined to see the 2007 third segment on the big screen where the furious pacing and visceral violence has full impact. So many trilogies fail to live up to the promise of the original movie and the later works too often look as if they've been tacked on to sweat the asset of the franchise (there's much talk of "the asset" in this movie), but the Bourne films have got better as they've progressed, are neatly linked by characters and plot, and in the end are satisfyingly symmetrical (we open and close the series with a floating body).
Doug Liman got things off to a commendable start as the original director, but having Paul Greenglass at the helm of the second and third films and Tony Gilroy as a scriptwriter on all three has really paid off. The trade-mark running through streets and over roofs and racing in cars and on bikes (with no regard for traffic rules or laws of gravity) are here again in spades, but most of the locations are new, notably London's Waterloo station (very familar to me) followed in short order by Madrid, Tangier and New York. The dazzling editing, the insistent score and the 169 stunt performers present an enthralling couple of hours.
I was delighted to see that (like me) Bourne is a "Guardian" reader, but sadly my PC does not work as fast as those at the CIA and I doubt that even the Agency has quite such immediate access to such voluminous data bases (if they do, the 'war on terror' should have been a breeze).
This time Blackbriar is added to Treadstone, but things gradually become clearer to Bourne, both in term of his fractured memories and his real enemies. The narrative arc works well as Bourne discovers who are his friends in the Agency and only kills when he really has to do so. As the eponymous ex-CIA black ops agent, Matt Damon exhibits physical and technical resources that are frankly superhuman and the ending could have been stronger, but this is still a thrilling and satisfying piece of cinema.
This is a film with an unusual subject and a surprising performance. It is the true story of American transgendered Brandon Teena who was born as a girl but lived as a man - so successfully that a deep relationship with a woman was established but so tragically that it led to a brutal rape and sadistic murder. The astonishingly beautiful Hilary Swank gives such a convincing and sensitive portrayal of Brandon that she rightly won an Academy Award for Best Actress. Chloë Sevigny is excellent too as Brandon's friend and then lover Lana Tisdale, resulting in her own Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The movie was researched for five years by Kimberley Peirce before she co-wrote and directed it - a remarkable and moving achievement.
Link: Wikipedia page on Brandon Teena click here
Like most films about trade unionism, this one is based on actual events (even though, at the end, it proclaims that everything is fictional). The title comes from the historic slogan of the striking textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 and the contemporary storyline is inspired by a three-week strike of janitors in Los Angeles in 1990 which was a turning point in the 'Justice for Janitors' campaign waged by the Service Employees International Union. This is an LA that one never sees in the countless movies shot in the city which show glamour and gangsters but never the under-paid and exploited workers who keep so much of the metropolis going.
The key characters in the narrative are Mexican sisters: the elder one Rosa (played movingly by Elpidia Carrillo), who already works in the city as a janitor and is struggling with a sick husband and young children, and the younger one Maya (a fiesty Pilar Padilla), whom we first see as an illegal immigrant crossing the US-Mexican border at dead of night. As in "Norma Rae", the workers are encouraged by a white, male, Jewish trade union organiser: in this case, Sam Shapiro (ably played by Adrien Brody). Although not without some humour and drama, the characters in the film are essentially one-dimensional and there is never any doubt where justice lies in this unequal battle between working-class Latinos and middle-class whites.
The real surprise of the movie is its source. This may be a very American story, but the director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty are British and the work was funded by five European countries. Most of the dialogue is in Spanish and sometimes the subtitles are shown against a bright background which makes them difficult to read. But the use of the immigrants' own language certainly adds to the authentity, as does the classic Loach documentary-like style of shooting. Indeed many real-life janitors played small roles and a couple of real-life organisers make appearances.
How does one choose a film to view? Often it is the subject matter - here the fraught relationship between landscape architect Will and both his partner of 10 years Liv (who has an autistic daughter) and his new lover Amira (who has a thieving son). Sometimes it is the star - in this case, Jude Law who has to choose between his American partner with an obsessive approach to parenthood (Robin Wright Penn) and his Bosnian refugee girlfriend working as a seamstress (Juliette Binoche). Other times it is the director - on this occasion, Anthony Minghella who writes as well as directs as he returns to the north London milieu in which he located "Truly, Madly, Deeply".
All of these are reasonable reasons for wanting to see "Breaking and Entering", but I confess that it was the supporting French actress Juliette Binoche that drew me to the work. I've been in love with her ever since her first English-language appearance in "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" in 1988. She is simply beautiful in a bewitching manner, while always convincing as an actress, especially in vulnerable roles (as here).
This is a multi-layered work in which the title can be taken in three ways: the obvious sense with the robberies perpetrated by Amira's son Miro; the deeper sense with Will's emotional assault on Amira; and still another sense as the middle-class Will and his like invade the traditionally working-class area of Kings Cross.
Those who need car chases or special effects in their movie experiences should avoid Mighella's parable, but those who value thoughtful and nuanced works will find much to admire here.
So many British films are costume dramas or gangster movies that it's a real pleasure to see a work that focuses on the modern and very real challenges of an immigrant community. Where "East Is East" dealt with a Pakistani family and "Bend It Like Beckham" had an Indian focus, "Brick Lane" - based on the Booker-nominated novel by Monica Ali - addresses the life of a teenage girl from a village in Bangladesh (scenes actually shot in a beautiful-looking India) who is married off to a much older compatriot living in the eponymous area of east London.
So much is fresh and feminine here: most of the roles are for women and newcomer Tannishta Chatterjee, as the central character Nazneen, is excellent, often conveying so much simply with her eyes; Sarah Gavron is assured in her first directing role; the writing credits go to Ali herself and two other women; while the original score comes from Jocelyn Pook and the haunting singing from Natacha Atlas. This is a measured and intimate work that is more about different types of love and religion than it is about the Bangaleshi community itself.
Who put the 'B' in "Pride" in the title of Jane Austen's famous novel? Why, Bollywood. Gurinder Chadha, an Indian who has been a long-time resident in London, gave us the wry and amusing "Bhaji On The Beach" and "Bend It Like Beckham" and now co-writes and directs this makeover for a very familiar and very English storyline. Set in India (Amritsar & Goa), the UK (London) and the USA (Los Angeles), it was actually shot mainly in London and Buckinghamshire in order to secure funding from the UK Film Council. However, the treatment is classic Bollywood with lots of singing and dancing and no kissing.
The Darcy role is taken by smooth New Zealander Martin Henderson, who lacks the brooding passion of the novel's character, while Indian actress Aishwarya Rai portrays the headstrong character of Elizabeth Bennet (here renamed Lalita Bakshi). She really makes the movie beause she is the "Queen of Bollywood", a beautiful former Miss World who can speak seven languages who has already starred in some 40 films. The colourful costumes and exotic locations make up for the lightness of it all.
Link: official web site click here
I haven't read Catholic convert Evelyn Waugh's famous 1945 novel or seen Granada's acclaimed 1981 television adaptation. so I approached the story fresh, as indeed will most viewers of this quintissentially England tale of the repressive nature of religion and class. I understand that the adaptation by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock has taken some liberties with the orginal, more subtle narrative, but this is inevitable in a work of just 133 minutes compared to the 11 episodes of the television series.
Directed by the English Julian Jarrold who made "Becoming Jane", the film has many strengths. As well as evocative music, there are wonderful locations in Oxford, Venice, Morocco and above all Castle Howard in North Yorkshire standing in - as in the television version - as the eponymous country house that is almost a character in itself. The script contains some fine lines - often very cutting and very cruel. Above all, there is some accomplished acting, both from veterans Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson as Lord and Lady Marchmain and newcomers Ben Whishaw and Hayley Attwell as their son Sebastian and daughter Julia and Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder, a young artist who falls in love in different ways with both Sebastian and Julia as well as their home and style.
Sadly, however, ultimately the whole film seems somewhat pedestrian and leaves one feeling strangely cold and disconnected.
Link: Wikipedia entry on the novel click here
I found the eponymous heroine of Helen Fielding’s best-selling novel [for review click here ] a rather pathetic and even sad character. In this movie version, Renée Zellweger turns her into a more endearing personage and it is amazing that the Texan-born actress was willing to put on so much weight and was so capable of mastering a middle-class English accent. The jokes start from the very beginning and don’t finish until mid way through the closing credits, but they simply aren’t good enough to make you laugh rather than merely smile.
“Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason”
Saturday evening. Go to north London cinema to see new BJ movie with latest flame (OK, wife of 22 years) and best friends Ivan and Ros (their idea). Gap between two films: for us - three years; for Bridget - six weeks or (as she puts it so delicately) "71 ecstatic shags" (that's some going - or coming). Same trio: Colin Firth (g.), Hugh Grant (v.g.), Renée Zellweger (v.v.g.). But also same silly scenario - like second layer of box of chocs with same flavour and same shapes. Only new character: Jacinda Barrett - too little screen time and body weight. Best bit: law society dinner quiz. Worst bit: tasteless Thailand prison sequence. Bridget wiggles and wobbles, audience giggles and gobbles.
Ang Lee is a uniquely accomplished director who has produced a succession of distinguished films which encompass an astonishing range of genres. Following fine work in his homeland of Taiwan such as "Eat Drink, Man Woman", he has made the period drama "Sense And Sensibility", the examination of family angst "The Ice Storm", an unusual western "Ride With The Devil", the wonderful ‘wu xia’ work "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the comic book fantasy "Hulk" (a rare failure), and now an anguished study of homosexuality between two modern-day cowboys in his latest triumph "Brokeback Mountain".
It is based on a short story written by Annie Proulx for the "New Yorker" in 1997 but commences in 1963. Located in Wyoming, USA but shot in Alberta, Canada, the scenery is stunning, even down to the cloud formations. Jack Gyllenhaal is the attractive, confident Jack Twist, while Heath ledger is the rougher, brooding, laconic Ennis del Mar - two men who have known little affection in their lives until an unexpected turn of events while they are tending sheep on the eponymous hillside. It is a relationship that struggles over two decades, even while both men marry and become fathers. The love and the pain, both between the two men and between them and their wives, is handled with great sensitivity and pathos, leaving the viewer saddened and moved.
I've not been a particular fan of Jim Carrey. Nothing would have induced me to see the "Ace Ventura" films, but I enjoyed his performances in "The Mask" and "The Truman Show" and he's been growing on me through television interviews. There is no doubting that the buffet-haired, plastic-faced, motor-mouthed one is a rare, if manic, talent and this movie is a showcase for his wacky style which sadly under-utilises Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Aniston as God and girlfriend respectively.
As a morality tale of a man who has God's powers for a week, there are some really funny scenes here (such as the Moses-inspired parting of the red soup), but the plotline is far too thin and shmaltzy. It seems that - as in "Groundhog Day" - the conservative message is that we should be content with our lot, even if that 'only' means being a reporter of bizarre community stories on a local television station.
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This is the third movie from Sacha Baron Cohen, the very talented and utterly outrageous British comedian who has the unlikely background of an upbringing with Orthodox Jewish parents and an education at Cambridge University. "Ali G Indahouse" held little appeal for me but "Borat" was a sensation representing truly ground-breaking humour. Whereas "Borat" sent up xenophobia in savagely effective style with the eccentric, dark man from Kazakhstan, “Brüno” seeks to do the same with homophobia in the form of the gay, blond boy from Austria - both seemingly endearing, innocent, inquiring souls.
There are some wonderful scenes here - I especially liked the 'exposure' of the Christian "gay converters" and the concluding 'fight' scene - but “Brüno” does not hit the mark as much as "Borat" did for several reasons. "Borat" was a brilliantly original piece of film-making whereas this is essentially a retread with the same style and some of the same targets (notably gullible Americans). The focus on the anal aspect of the homosexual lifestyle hardly does justice to being gay and is often so outlandish that it would offend its targets even if it was heterosexual practice that was being parodied.
In short, “Brüno” is so, so - more schadenfreude than wunderbar.
The Buena Vista Social Club was originally a location in Havana that achieved local fame in the 1940s, but this is the film that, almost five decades after most of the performers were largely came out to wide acclaim, but it was only in 2008 - after a wonderful visit to Cuba - that I finaly got around to viewing it.
The movie is a mixture of a recording made in Havana by Cuban musician Juan de Marcos González and American guitarist Ry Cooder and concerts by the performers in Amsterdam and New York in 1998. At the time, the oldest participants were in their ninties so, by the time, I saw the work, some were already dead.
The narrative could have been smoother and clearer, but this award-winning documentary scores because of the sheer exuberance of the Cuban music it features and the remarkable cast of immensely talented characters whose work it revives and celebrates. In short, a triumph that has profoundly changed the lives of the musicians and introduced their music to a new audience.
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Wonderfully quirky characters played by sparkingly talented actors pulse through a narrative on the interconnectedness and happenstance nature of life in this combination of tense thriller and black comedy written , produced and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.
It all starts with the resignation of CIA analyst Osborne Cox (a truly scary and foulmouthed John Malkovich) who is married to Katie (cold and calculating Tilda Swinton) who is having an affair with federal agent Harry Pfarrer (a dark-bearded George Clooney). This would make for an odd enough cast but then we have the three staff of the Hardbodies Fitness Center: Chad Feldheimer (a blond=streaked Brad Pitt) who thinks that he can extort Cox, Linda Litzke (an edgy Frances Dormand) who would like a share of the proceeds for a series of cosmetic operations, and their boss Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins) who really cares for Linda just as she is.
In pursuing their very different objectives, some of these characters are going to reach a sticky end in a tight tale of barely more than one and a half hours. For the Coen brothers, this is a world away from their previous work, "No Country For Old Men", and a successful and entertaining return to some of the territory traversed by "Fargo" in 1996.
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All reviews by ROGER DARLINGTON.
Last modified on 7 January 2010
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