Contents
"East Is East" "The Edge Of Love" "An Education" "Elizabeth" "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" "Emma" "End Of Days" "The End Of The Affair" "Enemy At The Gates" "The English Patient" "Enigma" "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room" "Entrapment" "Equilibrium" "Erin Brockovich" "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" "Evening" "Event Horizon" "Exodus" "Eyes Wide Shut" "Face/Off" "Fahrenheit 9/11" "Fair Game" "Far From Heaven" "Far From The Madding Crowd" "Fever Pitch" "Fifteen Minutes" "50 First Dates" "55 Days At Peking" "Fight Club" "(500) Days Of Summer" "Flags Of Our Fathers" "Flightplan" "Flyboys" "Frida" "Frost/Nixon" "Galaxy Quest" "The Game" "Gangs Of New York" "Garden State" "The General's Daughter" "The Ghost" "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" "The Girl Who Played With Fire" "Girl, Interrupted" "Girl With A Pearl Earring" "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" "Gladiator" "The Golden Compass" "Gone In 60 Seconds" "Good Bye Lenin!" "A Good Year" "Good Will Hunting" "Gosford Park" "Gran Torino" "Green Lantern" "The Green Mile" "Green Zone" "Groundhog Day"
I lived in Manchester until 1971 and I now live in the London Borough of Brent which has a large Asian population, so I was quite willing to view this small, but succesful, British film centred on a family headed by a Pakistani living in Salford in the early 1970s. Writer Ayub Khan-Din has produced a sharp script which manages to be full of both humour and pathos, while director Damien O’Donnell has elicited fine performances from a virtually unknown cast (unless you watch television's “Coronation Street”). Om Puri is excellent as George Khan who presides over his English wife and seven children (all but one of them sons). Somehow his arrogant and often brutal character manages to win our sympathy as he tries to instill in his Anglicised off-spring acceptance of his culture, while Linda Bassett is impressive as his partner, torn between respect for her husband and understanding for her children.
Set during the Second World War in both London and Wales, this film portrays the complex relationships between four real-life characters: the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (played by Welsh actor Matthew Rhys abandoning his American accent from the US television series "Brothers And Sisters"), his Irish wife Caitlin MacNamara (British actress Sienna Miller), his first love Vera Phillips (another British actress Keira Knightley) and Vera's husband the British soldier Captain William Killick (Irish actor Cillian Murphy). Many of the incidents represented are a matter of record but other occurences are simply speculation on the part of screenwriter Sharman Macdonald (Knightley's mother).
In truth, it is Keira Knightley's film. Her striking physiognomy always makes her a pleasure to watch, but this is the finest performance of her young (still only 23) career, as she effects a decent Welsh accent and even sings in a nuanced act of thespian of which she can be proud. Director John Maybury does not make the character or the poetry of Dylan Thomas any more accessible but the bonding and bruising between his wife and his lover create a humanistic tale.
Sixteen year old London schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) obtains more than one type of education when she encounters smooth and middle-aged con man David (Peter Sarsgaard) in the early 1960s when learning Latin and reaching Oxford take a back seat to expensive socialising and early sex. Mulligan is utterly convincing as the bright but bored student seduced by a more immediate and exciting lifestyle and clearly has a fine acting career ahead of her. This is a story which could so easily have been told in a stereotypical fashion but writer Nick Hornby and Danish director Lone Scherfig handle the material in an accomplished and nuanced manner that gives credibility to what is in fact a biographical experience taken from the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber.
This historical drama of 16th century England – directed by the Indian Shekhar Kapur – is a triumph. Script, sets, costumes and music are all well-crafted. With the exceptions of the inappropriate casting of Angus Deayton and Eric Cantona, the acting is uniformly excellent, with particularly fine performances from the Australians Cate Blanchett, as the eponymous ‘virgin’ queen, and Geoffrey Rush, as the trusted but callous Walsingham. On second viewing especially, I was struck by the superb camerawork: shots from above, rotating shots, framed shots through arches and doors, and obscured shots through curtains or grills.
The story is young Elizabeth's struggle from virtual outcast to secure leader of her nation during the period 1554 to 1572. This is a royal court full of shadows and whispers and the final, bloody consolidation of power is reminiscent of the conclusion of “The Godfather”.
A film with the same subject (England's most successful queen), the same leading actress (Cate Blanchett) and the same director (Shekhar Kapur) as the wonderful 1998 work "Elizabeth" excites great expectations and, while there are many jewels here, sadly all that glitters is not gold. As with the earlier movie, it looks magnificent, with wonderful locations. sets, and costumes, and the camera work is stunning with clever compositions and remarkable fluidity and angles. Again the acting is particularly fine with Blanchett a tour de force.
The focus is narrower in time, beginning in 1585 and climaxing with the defeat of the Spanish Armada three years later in action scenes absent from the first film. The main problem is the script from Michael Hirst & William Nicholson. The narrative is too slow and too confused and some of the lines are somewhat banal, while the attempt to create a romantic storyline between the 'virgin' queen and the adventurer Walter Raleigh (an able Clive Owen) is too contrived and unlikely.
Films often come in pairs and 1996 saw two adaptations of novels by Jane Austin: “Sense And Sensibility” and “Emma” (published in 1816). The later work was distinguished by the American craftmanship of this most English story: both writer-director Douglas McGrath and lead actress Gwyneth Paltrow – who sports a marvellous English accent – are from the USA. Yet there is an ensemble British cast – led by Greta Scacchi, Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Northam – and superb Dorset settings in this charming tale of a 21 year old well-intentioned, but meddlesome, matchmaker who finally marries her match.
After a two-year screen absence, Arnold Schwarzenegger returns in this eve of millennium supernatural hokum that could be termed “Terminator” meets “The Exorcist”. This time the enemy is Satan himself – played by Gabriel Byrne, who can at least act – and, as usual, the devil has the best lines. The prey is Christine York (Christ in New York – get it?) played by the winsome Robin Tunney. Can Arnie save her from diabolical violation and the world from Satanic domination? Well, what do you think? Along the way, director and cinematographer Peter Hyams (“TimeCop”) offers us shocks and gore - hence the ‘18’ certificate - plenty of pyrotechnics and some 450 special effects shots before faith conquers all. This mess of a movie will not do much for Scwarzenegger’s flagging film career, but it won’t do his political ambitions any harm in a country where fundamentalist Christians hold extraordinary sway.
Links:
official web site click here
Arnie's own site click here
This is a frightfully English film in which the suave Ralph Fiennes (“The English Patient”) plays the writer and narrator Maurice Bendix who has a passionate affair with the delectable Julianne Moore as Sarah Miles, the neglected wife of the repressed man from the ministry portrayed by Stephen Rea. Most of the story is set in a war-time London, where it seems to be constantly pouring with rain, and the earth certainly moves for Maurice and Sarah – with a little help from the Germans. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to fathom why the movie attracted an ‘18’ certificate in Britain. It can’t have been the occasional glimpses of Moore’s breasts, so one has to assume that it had something to do with the equally brief shot of Fiennes’ heaving buttocks. Writer and director Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game") has done an excellent job and produced an atmospheric and intelligent work, full of illuminating flash-backs and repeat scenes.
The film is based loosely on the autobiographical novel by the Catholic writer Graham Greene which in turn was inspired by his affair with the married socialite Catherine Walston. In fact, Greene and Walston did not meet until 1946 and, far from being short-lived, the affair lasted 13 years.
Link: Ralph Fiennes site click here
They are very few western-made films about the Second World War’s Eastern Front. After all, although the casualty toll – around 20M dead overall, including up to a million at Stalingrad alone - far exceeded that on the West, it was not American or British but Soviet lives which were lost. The two such works that I have seen are “Cross Of Iron” (1977) and “Stalingrad” (1992).
Now French director Jean-Jacques Annaud (“The Name Of The Rose”) offers us “Enemy At The Gates” which is also about the ferocious 1942 Battle of Stalingrad, but – a novel angle for a war film – this is set around a personal duel between crack snipers. The movie has provoked some controversy since, while the Soviet marksman Vasily Zaitsev (played by Jude Law) did exist, the German shooter Major Konig (a charismatic Ed Harris) was almost certainly an invention of Communist propaganda. However, such minor tampering with history is certainly not on a par with the travesties in “U-571” or “The Patriot”.
The sets and special effects – it was filmed in Berlin – are stunning in their verisimilitude and some of the action sequences, especially at the beginning, approach those in “Saving Private Ryan” in the brutality of their impact. Bob Hoskins impresses in a cameo role as the young Nikita Kruschev. Nevertheless the rivalry for the affections of woman soldier Tania (Rachel Weisz) is too sentimental and the script far too weak for this to be as good a film as it could have been.
Links:
information on the battle click here
information on Vasily Zaitsev click here
This Oscar-garlanded movie has a complex structure of repeated flash-backs and certainly benefits from a second viewing. Based on a novel by Michael Ondaatje, this is a triumph for the British Anthony Minghella who both scripted and directed. Beautifully shot on location in Tunisia and Italy and set before and during the Second World War, this is a heart-wrenchingly tragic love story with unconventional characters at its centre. Strangest of all is the patient himself, the enigmatic, laconic and cold Count played supremely well by Ralph Fiennes. He is loved – in very different ways – by the recently married and classically English Katherine (Kristin Scott Thomas) and a French Canadian nurse (Juliette Binoche). The tale unravels slowly and episodically to an unconventionally down-beat conclusion.
This is a rare pleasure of a film – one that is prepared to treat its viewers intelligently and tell a war-time story without explosives and histrionics and without falsifying history to glorify the Americans. It is based on the best-selling novel by Robert Harris whose previous work “Fatherland” suffered so badly when translated to the screen. Here he has a decent screenplay from Tom Stoppard, assured direction from Michael Apsted, and three fine performances by British actors.
Dougray Scott, in a very different role from his “Mission Impossible 2” outing, has lost weight to portray brilliant, but tortured, code-breaker Tom Jericho at Britain’s war-time Bletchley Park; Kate Winslet put on weight (she was pregnant at the time) for a performance far removed from “Titantic” as the frumpy, but clever, Hester; and Jeremy Northam is excellent as the sardonic secret service agent Wigram who knows far more than he is prepared to reveal.
Links:
official web site click here
Enigma machine site click here
“Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room”
Enron was the US energy company that "Fortune" named as "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years and, at its height, it employed 22,000 people and claimed revenues of around $100 billion. It went bankrupt at the end of 2001 and this documentary was released in 2005, but I did not see it until four years later. By then, we had experienced 'the end of capitalism as we've known it' and the most serious collapse in financial markets since the Wall Street Crash. What Enron and the wider market crash have in common is the murky world of derivatives, an excessive exuberance for risk, and simple avarice and hubris, while the mother and father of both crises are deregulation.
Alex Gibney co-wrote, co-produced and directed this work which, though occasionally complex, is compelling viewing and a lesson to us all on corporate greed and regulatory failure. Interviews with key observers and extracts from Congressional hearings are linked by a narration from Peter Coyote. The heroines of the story are Bethany McLean, the financial journalist who first questioned the valuation of Enron, and Sherron Watkins, the senior manager who blew the whistle on the company. The villains are a long list of men headed by Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay and Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling. Maybe there is a gender lesson here as well - as many financial and political ones.
Link: Wikipedia page on the Enron scandal click here
I wanted to enjoy this film since the three main locations are well-known to me and individually the two British stars have done some good work – but what a disappointment. It features dramatic robberies set in New York, London and Kuala Lumpur respectively with – in the last case – the architecturally distinct Petronas Towers standing in for a special bank, so it is visually quite glossy. However, the leading actors are simply inadequate to the occasion. Sean Connery as Mac is charismatic but at 68 just too old for these sort of escapades, while Catherine Zeta Jones – just 29 – is attractive enough but too wooden in her performance. The double life of the Jones character is implausible and the age difference makes the chemistry between the actors difficult to accept.
Link: official web site click here
"Logan's Run" (1976) meets "The Matrix" (1999) in this visually stylish sci fi thriller in which one of the enforcers of a strict order of compliance in a future authorianian version of Earth is tempted over to the light side. The character displaying the moral doubts of Logan 5 and the fighting capabilities of Neo is one of the so-called 'clerics' called John Preston who is played by a steely-eyed and black-clan Christian Bale.
The sets are impressive and the fight sequences exciting, while the odd plot twist keeps the attention. If only there had been a better script and more subtlety, this could have become a cult classic. Since Kurt Wimmer was both writer and director, he is responsible for both the film's strengths and weaknesses.
This is a wonderful star vehicle for Julia Roberts in the eponymous role as the brash and brassy unmarried mother of three who foists herself on a small-time law firm and then brings to account an American utility that has knowingly poisoned hundreds of trusting citizens. Roberts is rarely off the screen and gives arguably the finest performance of her career. She is well-served by a hard-hitting script from Susannah Grant and excellent direction by Steven Soderbergh. Brockovich’s boss Ed Masry is played by Albert Finney who has had good reviews, but I don’t understand why a British character actor was cast in such a role.
The case – closely based on a real one – concerns 600 residents of the small town of Hinckley in the Mojave desert who, it transpires, have suffered decades of poisoning from water contaminated by chromium 6 leaking from the gas transmission plant owned by Pacific Gas & Electric. Most legal dramas conclude with a court-room scene in which victory is secured through some clever verbal exchange. This one is very different and more typical of most legal work: the case never goes to trial but is instead resolved by arbitration and success only comes after four years of research and negotiation. In 1997, Hinckley’s residents were awarded $333 million (£208 million) in the largest settlement in American legal history.
The film has had a major impact in the United States. On the one hand, it has stimulated many more class actions against utility companies, with Brockovich herself now working on seven new toxic litigation cases. On the other had, many of those involved in the Hinckley case are now arguing that it should have gone to trial and that their settlements were too low. Any film that can stimulate such controversy is a must-see.
Link: official web site click here
“Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”
Moviemakers have often been fascinated by memory - think of "Total Recall" or "Memento" - and the medium lends itself well to the realisation of what are above all visual recollections and reconstructions. Here acclaimed scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman displays more of the inventiveness than was so successfully on show in "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation". This time, though, the director is not Spike Jonze, but Michel Gondry, a maker of music videos and commercials, turning his hand for the first time to a full-length feature. In fact, the film often feels like a video, with a grainy and jerky - almost dreamlike - look.
The essence of Kaufman's story is the attempt by two unlikely and very different characters to erase the memories of their less than idyllic relationship. Jim Carrie plays withdrawn and melancholic Joel in the most restrained, even rather sad, performance that we have ever seen this from this usually manic comic, while Kate Winslet is totally convincing as Clementine, a cheery and colourful, but wild and impulsive, personality who infuses herself into his life and his heart. When each in turn wishes to blank out the memory of the other, a weird company appropriately called Lacuna offers to do the deed.
In an original romantic comedy where one thinks and smiles more than laughs, we are invited to value memories, however uncomfortable or even painful, as part of our experience and identity and possibly capable of being revisited and refashioned. It's all rather indulgent and at times esoteric, but then this is Charlie Kaufman. One wonders how long he can perform these mind tricks before he attempts a more conventional narrative but, in the meanwhile, this a film to be savoured at least once and preferably twice.
Footnote:
The erudite title comes from a poem by Alexander Pope called "Epistle Of Eloïsa To Abelard":
"How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot:
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted and each wish resign'd."
Links:
official web site click here
Lacuna Web site click here
This film would be a prime candidate for the most star-studded work that most movie fans have never heard of. Sadly this has a lot to do with the fact that the stellar cast of thespian talent is overwhelmingly female and the author of the original novel and co-author of the script is a woman too. I suspect that, if so much male talent had been dissipated, we'd know more about it.
Imagine a movie with Vanessa Redgrave and daughter Natasha Richardson, Meryl Streep and daughter Mamie Gummer, Glenn Close, Toni Colette, and Claire Danes. How could it possibly fail? But it does. Maybe it's the men that one should blame, especially co-writer Michael Cunningham ("The Hours") and Lajos Koltai on only his second directorial outing.
I imagine that "Evening" worked much better as a novel, where the constant time shifts would be easier to follow, and I understand that Susan Minot's book presented a darker picture than even the rather nihilist picture in the film version. This tale of love and loss could have been so much more powerful, but this treatment is too slow and fractured to hit the emotions as it should.
The “Event Horizon” is in fact an experimental space craft that can travel faster than the speed of light through a device that can ‘fold’ space to create a singularity (I know ..). In 2040, it disappears somewhere near Neptune, only to reappear seven years later with no signs of life aboard. A special crew is sent to investigate led by the intrepid Laurence Fishburne and including the archetypal mad scientist played by Sam Neill. Like most science fiction films, this is derivative of so many others, mainly the seminal “Alien” of 1979 (crew picked off by some unseen evil) and the Russian “Solaris” of 1972 (a craft that can manipulate human memories) with even a scene from the 1973 shocker “Don’t Look Now” (image of dead child leads adult to death). The space ship shows more life than the crew who struggle with a leaden script, but there are some excellent sets and splendid special effects to entertain.
When this film was first released (1960), I and the state of Israel were just 12 years old; by the time I finally caught up with it (2008), we were both 60 and I had just visited the country for the first time. The creation of Israel - the subject of the movie - was highly problematic and its survival and success over six decades are little short of miraculous, so this film, based on the best-selling novel by Leon Uris, ought to have been thrilling, but it turned out to be an exercise in dullness.
Set and filmed in Cyprus and Israel (Jerusalem and Acre), there is a good deal of historical verisimilitude here, especially in the treatment of the conflict between the Haganah and the Irgun (for my description of these organisations click here), but everything moves so slowly and so deliberatively, while much of the acting - especially from the younger performers - is dire.
The presence of stars Paul Newman and Eve Marie Saint cannot lift the work beyond the well-intentioned but mediocre and the love story between their chararacters is one of the weaker lines of narrative. At the end, Newman's character, a senior Haganah man, makes a graveside speech looking forward to Jews and Arabs living together in peace. Of course, sadly we are still waiting.
The whole epic runs an incredible three and a half hours. There's a story - possibly apocryphal - that, at a preview with the director Otto Preminger, the Jewish comedian Mort Sahl stood up after three hours and pleaded "Let my people go!" In short, very worthy, very long, very pedestrian.
This is the film for which we have waited 12 years – the first work from masterful, but idiosyncratic, movie-maker Stanley Kubrick since “Full Metal Jacket” in 1987. It is his 13th production and, since he died aged 70 shortly after completing it, clearly his last. This erotic thriller is loosely based on a novella called “Tramnouvelle”, first published in German in 1926, and the English translation “Dream Story” was issued free in paperback by the “Guardian” on the weekend that the film was released in Britain [for review click here]. The film is remarkably faithful to the book, simply transposing the action from beginning of the century Vienna to present day New York.
Typically a movie will take three months to shoot, but the obsessive Kubrick needed 18 months and some $65M. Although the action takes place over just three days – it is set in New York but was actually filmed in London – it takes a ponderous 2 hours 39 minutes to screen.
Remarkably little happens. Professional American couple Dr William Harford and his wife Alice, played by Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, confront the nature of their seemingly secure marriage when she confesses to a dream fantasy involving a naval officer and he – as a reaction to this revelation – gains entry to a bizarre, masked and sybaritic orgy which may or may not have had murderous consequences. Yet the whole exercise is carried out with superb style –some fine acting, brilliant costumes and photography, and wonderfully atmospheric music (from Dmitri Shostakovitch and Jocelyn Pook).
The verisimilitude of these surreal events is much aided by the use of a high-profile, real-life couple for the lead roles. I saw the film with two women friends and the consensus was that Kidman – while on screen for less time – out-acted her husband. However, there was much less agreement between us about what the film meant. I thought that it posed the questions of what constitutes infidelity and how one can resolve it, but what is certain is that this is a film which has to be seen and will have you thinking and discussing long afterwards.
Links:
official web site click here
Stanley Kubrick site click here
This is an exciting action-thriller from director John Hoo with his trademark balletic violence and fluttering doves that has a more original (if highly improbable) plot than most involving FBI agent John Travolta and arch criminal Nicolas Cage 'trading' faces and places in a narrative that requires each actor to mimic the other's character. Plenty of chases and lots of double-handed shooting. Good fun.
This is a must-see movie whose images live long in the mind. Written, narrated, produced and directed by the maverick Michael Moore - who has, almost single-handedly, reinvented the political documentary - this is a tour-de-force which deconstructs the simple-mindedness, dishonesty and corruption at the heart of the Bush administration. It is not fair or balanced, it is frequently outright satirical, it is sometimes too personalised, and (at one point at least) it is frankly cheap (the effort to persuade Congressmen to send their sons to war). But we know before we go into the cinema that this is not a standard documentary but a personal polemic and it is all the more powerful and impressive for that.
From the opening scenes - where we are reminded of how differently it should all have been (since Al Gore actually won the Presidential election of 2000) - the visuals are captivating. So often, Bush destroys himself by his vacant stare or his banal comment or totally inappropriate behaviour. The testimony from a dead soldier's mother from Moore's home town of Flint is very moving and the footage from Iraq itself, obtained while with US troops, is deeply disturbing. It reveals the class divide in America - poor, often black, men fighting wars that make rich, white men even richer - in a political system that likes to deny the concept of class. Indeed this is a very a rare work: a political film that might actually influence politics.
Links:
Michael Moore's site click here
Moore's notes and sources click here
This film deserves to be much better known because it tells an important true story in a compelling style.
In March 2003, the Americans invaded Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD programme but, four months later, former ambassador Joe Wilson wrote an article questioning some of the evidence adduced by President Bush to justify the military action. Eight days after the piece in the "New York Times", Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA operative. When this appalling abuse of power by the political establishment was exposed, it was revealed that the White House regarded Plame as "fair game" once her husband had challenged the prevailing orthodoxy.
This movie version of events is based on books subsequently written by both Wilson and Plame and concludes with the start of her oral evidence to a Congressional inquiry. Naomi Watts is excellent as Flame, while Sean Penn is brilliant as Wilson, both conveying emotionally the impact on them professionally and personally of the betrayal by a system which they had previously so loyally and capably served. Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity") was both director and director of photography, turning what could have been a dense and worthy polemic into an accessible and exciting account that fuels righteous anger.
Link: Wikipedia page of the Plame affair click here
From the opening credits (which these days usually don't happen) to the closing credits, this is a movie that looks like it was made in the 1950s rather than simply set in that period. The clothes, the cars, the colours all wonderfully recreate the time. But the subject matter is very contemporary: an examination of homosexuality and race relations that simply could not have been reviewed in these terms at that terribly repressed period.
Writer and director Todd Haynes and cinematographer Edward Lachman are responsible for conjuring up the Connecticut of 1957 in such credible and convincing terms, but they are wonderfully served by their actors. Julianne Moore (blonde rather than red-haired here) gives an outstanding performance as the liberal-minded but socially naive Cathy Whitaker, while Dennis Quaid is excellent as her sexually tormented husband Frank.
This is a movie which is close to heaven as far as talent and skill are concerned, even if the issues examined are at times somewhat hellish.
John Schlesinger's film of Thomas Hardy's novel was released in 1967 and I saw it twice in the early 1970s. I was prompted to view it again by the 2010 movie "Tamara Drewe" whose storyline is inspired by "Far From The Madding Crowd". It was a pleasure to revisit Schlesinger's work which has a star-stunned cast with the beautiful Julie Christie as Bathsheba Everdine and Peter Finch, Terence Stamp and Alan Bates as the three men seeking her affections. As eye-catching as these performances though are the Dorset and Wiltshire countryside and the wonderful cinematographer of Nicolas Roe three years before he became a director.
This is the film based on the first book written by British author Nick Hornby about his obsession with north London football team Arsenal with Colin Firth in the lead role. It's amusing enough but, if - like me - you are one of the few Englishmen who cares little for the sport, you'll find it inexplicable that someone should find twenty-two men running after a bag of air more appealing that Ruth Gemmell.
I set out for my local multiplex to see “Thirteen Days”, only to find that it had been wrongly advertised in the press and so instead I finished up seeing “Fifteen Minutes” – which I guess is shorter. This is a crime thriller set in New York and both written and directed by John Herzfeld. The guy tried hard, so hard – especially with his edgy camera style – but it really doesn’t work.
No movie with Robert de Niro – a celebrity cop who is here teamed up with a fire marshall played by Edward Burns – can be totally written off, but this is no “Heat” or “Ronin”. Instead there are elements of “Dirty Harry” with the cynical treatment of the American justice system and its cannibalistic media and a final shoot-out with the deranged killer. There’s fire and firepower, but insufficient characterisation and subtlety.
I normally steer away from Adam Sandler movies - his gauchey manner, whiney accent, and gross-out humour turn me off. But he was tolerable in the recent "Anger Management" and I enjoyed "The Wedding Singer" which he made six years ago with Drew Barrymore. So, the lack of anything more appealing at my multi-plex and the re-uniting of Sandler with Barrymore, persuaded me to give him another chance.
It was not a mistake, but it was a pleasure of distinctly limited proportions. We see a gentler side of Sandler in this romantic comedy when - shades of "Groundhog Day" - the inveterate womaniser falls for a woman who can only retain new memories for 24 hours and therefore does not recognise him each morning and needs charming all over again. There are some silly characters and adolescent humour, although some of the animal scenes are cute. However, far the best feature of the movie is Barrymore who has come such a long way since "E.T." and is by turns utterly winsome, genuinely funny, and quite moving.
When Samuel Bronson produced this movie in 1963, it was regarded as something of an epic with impressive sets in Spain and a rich cast including Charlton Heston, David Niven, Ava Gardner and Flora Robson. Today though it is not just the name of China's capital that has changed; it is our whole expectation of films. Now the work appears over-blown and over-long with a weak script and wooden delivery. The time in which the story is located - the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 - deserves to be better understood, especially now that China's global position is so important, and there is something of an effort to put the Chinese case through the words of the Empress, but essentially this is an old-fashioned celebration of imperialism, especially of the Anglo-Saxon variety.
Link: Wikipedia essay on the Boxer Rebellion click here
I thought that this film would be violent (it is), so I stayed away from it when it was on cinematic release, but friends recommended it so, when it had its British television network premiere (at Christmas!), I decided to catch it. The first half-hour is slow and I wondered why I'd bothered, but then it picks up accelerating pace and power. I should have known that anything directed by David Fincher (who gave us "Seven") would be special and, in both subject matter and style, this is something different.
Based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Edward Norton is both the narrator and central character, an alienated office worker who suffers serious insomnia. He meets Brad Pitt, a soap salesman who has some strange ideas about the components and uses of his product. It starts with the blood-splattered fight club of the title which attracts increasing numbers of disaffected young men who have no purpose in their lives and utter contempt for our consumer society. It ends in explosive and startling fashion, leaving one dizzy but enthralled.
Here is a rom-com with a number of differences, starting with the title. This Summer is not a season (even Los Angeles does not have that much sun) but a girl (the cute Zooey Deschanel) amorously pursued by Tom (talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt), both of whom work for a greeting cards company trading on triteness. The structure of the narrative is terribly post-modern in being non-chronological and the genre is subverted in not following the conventional formula. The final major novelty is a series of intersected cinematic flourishes such as - my favourites - an open-air dance sequence of triumph and a split screen depicting expectation and reality.
At the heart of the movie's success is a clever script from Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. The film begins with the disclaimer: "Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental ... Especially you, Jenny Beckman ... Bitch." but Neustadter has admitted that the story was based on a real romance that he experienced while studying at the London School of Economics. The departure from the conventional rom-com resolution and the sense of authenticity imbue this entertaining tale with an element of reality as well as much hilarity.
I've been a massive fan of Clint Eastwood's directorial talents ever since "Play Misty For Me" (1971), so the arrival in 2006 of a diptych on the Battle of Iwo Jiwa - the American viewpoint in "Flags Of Our Fathers" and the Japanese perspective in "Letters From Iwo Jiwa" - was genuinely exciting.
The first of these movies is centred on the experience of three of the six men photographed by Joe Rosenthal in his iconic shot of the raising of the stars and stripes on Mount Suribachi: the Marine Rene Gagnon (Jess Bradford), the Navy man Doc Bradley (Ryan Phillipe) and the Pima Indian Ira Hayes (Adam Beach). The source material is a book written by Bradley's son.
This is an unusually downbeat, even cynical, look at what is usually represented as 'the good war', highlighting how this was actually the second flag-raising by a totally different group from the first and how the three did not see themselves as heroes but as tools of a government desperate to raise bonds to fund the war.
There is much to admire in the film, notably the disturbingly realistic depiction of the landing on the island and the battle for the mount, all the more convincing for being shot in muted colours. In these scenes, one literally hardly sees the Japanese defenders and, when one does, they are either dead or about to become so, at either the hands of the GIs or themselves. What lets the work down is the fractured chronology with constant jumping between the actual invasion, the fund-raising back home, and the post-war experiences of the three men which both breaks the narrative and makes it difficult to identify the characters.
Links:
Wikipedia page on the battle of Iwo Jima click here
Wikipedia page on the raising of the flag click here
"Flightplan" is a starring vehicle for Jodie Foster who, as in her last film ("Panic Room"), is a young mother coping without a father in looking after a daughter in danger in markedly contained surroundings. It is good to see a strong central role for an actress and Foster gives a fine performance full of resilience and resourcefulness. Sean Bean, as the pilot of the ultra-new Aalto Air E-474 airliner, and Peter Sarsgaard, as the aircraft's sky marshal, are in good form and Greta Scacchi makes surprise appearance as a therapist, all of whom are convinced that propulsion engineer and recently-widowed Kyle Pratt (Foster) is fantasising the disappearance of her daughter. There are some taut Hitchcock-like scenes, but ultimately the movie fails to take off because there are just too many implausibilities and an improbable and unsatisfactory ending.
This is a worthy and entertaining enough film that tells a story little covered in the movie world: how American pilots made up a squadron La Lafayette Escadrille in the French Air Force during World War One before the USA eventually entered the war. It claims to be inspired by actual characters and, surprising as it may seem, there was - as the movie depicts - a black flier in the unit. Also some effort has been made to get the technical details right: the references to aircraft types (the squadron flew the Nieuport 17) are accurate and pilots did wear silk scarves so that they could look around the sky more easily.
The success of the movie is the model work and the CGI. Most of the time, the aicraft do look authentic and the technical wizardry enables a closer up portrayal of the exciting action - and there is a lot of it - than could ever be possible with real aircraft. The problems are with stereotypical characters (lightweight actors led by James Franco) and predictable scenarios (the evil German ace is bound to meet his end).
Link: info on La Lafayette Escadrille click here
There are not many films about painters - "Surviving Picasso" and "Pollock" are two fairly recent examples - and I cannot remember a previous one about a female painter. Indeed the subject of this bio-pic, the Mexican Frida Kahlo (1910-1954), does not even feature in my "Penguin Dictionary Of Art And Artists". But it is always good to see something new and to learn about someone previously unfamiliar.
Above all, we have the Mexican actress Salma Hayek to thank for this, since she laboured for years to bring the work to the screen, was one of the film's producers, and takes the eponymous role. The diminutive (5' 2"), but stunningly beautiful, Hayek is splendid as the painter, tortured by the pain from a terrible accident and the resulting 32 operations, who projects her suffering onto canvas, while experiencing a turbulent marriage with fellow artist Diego Rivera ( 6' 2" Alfred Molina), an affair with revolutionary Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush) and several lesbian relationships.
However, considerable credit also goes to the director Julie Traymor, who mixes colourful Mexican locations and costumes with clever transpositions from life into art, and her husband Elliot Goldenthal who provides an evocative soundtrack. A better script would have lifted the work to a new level.
Link: Wikipedia page on Kahlo click here
Michael Sheen is excellent as British television interviewer David Frost while Frank Langella is outstanding as American President Richard Nixon in this recreation of the famous four interviews conducted in the summer of 1977, three years after Nixon was forced from office after the cover-up of Watergate. The strategy, the tactics, the mind games make for compelling viewing and the script - adapted by Peter Morgan from his own play - is razor-sharp. Ron Howard directed this in between "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels And Demons" and knowing that this particular conspiracy was the real thing and not the invention of Dan Brown makes the movie all the more chilling.
I love science fiction movies, but I confess that I’m not a great “Star Trek” fan – I find both the television series and the films too ponderous and moralistic and the original cast certainly overstayed their time on the big screen. So it’s OK by me to spoof the series, its cast, and its fanatical followers in the inconsequential, but rather entertaining, “Galaxy Quest”. Tim Allen is almost touching in the Kirk-type role and the British Alan Rickman brings a lovely dead-pan style to the Spock-alike part. But the revelation is the statuesque Sigourney Weaver. We know that she can do comedy – “Ghostbusters” made that clear – but it took a certain kind of self-deprecating charm to poke gentle fun at her "Alien" role as “The Talented Miss Ripley” by taking on a persona that required her to be both blonde and buxom.
Link: fan web site click here
If I tell you that this is from the director of the shocker “Seven”, you know that it’s not about baseball or basketball. If life was a trial for Franz Kafka, then seemingly for David Fincher it’s some sort of game – in both cases, we don’t know the rules or the outcome, let alone who’s behind it all. Like “Seven”, this is a dark work in both visual and narrative terms. Michael Douglas, who is never off the screen, is excellent as the tough investment banker Nicholas van Orton who’s approaching his 48th birthday and willing – however reluctantly – to try something novel as a birthday gift from his younger brother Conrad (Sean Penn in a role for which he is too young and under-used). But is this clever entertainment, a financial scam, or something entirely different? We only find out at the end of an inventive thriller with as many twists as a corkscrew.
One of the outstanding directors of his generation, Martin Scorese never creates a movie that is less than both interesting and impressive and "Gangs" is both.
Partly it is the unusual subject material: the gangs dominating a vicously violent Five Points distict of New York in 1863 - the largely British & Dutch heritage Natives commanded by Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting and the mainly Irish immigrant Dead Rabbits originally led by 'Priest' Vallon. Partly it is starry cast and the compelling acting - especially a brilliant Daniel Day-Lewis as the utterly chilling 'Butcher' and an impressive Leonardo DiCaprio as Vallon's son Amsterdam, but also Cameron Diaz as Amsterdam's lover, Jim Broadbent as a corrupt political boss, and John C Reilly as an equally corrupt police chief plus a cameo appearance by Liam Neeson as the 'Priest'. Partly - and this is what is seared on the brain - it is the bloody, brutal and often random violence that is visited upon so many of the movie's New York characters at a time when the Civil War was in full flow.
This is not the 'American Dream' as we traditionally envisage it and viewing "Gangs" is not an uplifting experience. It is all shot on sets and this is rather obvious. And it is perhaps longer than it needed have been (almost three hours). But it is still a must-see movie.
Links:
official web site click here
the Five Points click here
I confess that I only looked at this 2004 movie because it stars Natalie Portman. I've been a fan since her remarkable performance in "Leon" (1994) and, following her great success in "Black Swan" (2011), I wanted to catch up on some of her earlier work. She gives an assured display here as a cookie youngster. But this is Zach Braff's film - at the age of just 29, he wrote it, he directed it and he takes the lead role as a troubled young man returning to the Garden State of New Jersey (Braff's home state) after a long absence to confront family and friends and in the process discover himself. It's slow and quirky but it picks up pace and spirit to make for a rewarding viewing.
Like “A Few Good Men”, this is an investigation of a murder on an American military base where the top bass simply want a cover up. It is effectively a star vehicle for John Travolta as Paul Brenner from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and he gives a strong, if one-dimensional, performance as someone who will stand up to anyone, including the General (James Cromwell), to find the truth. James Woods plays one of the many suspects and, thoupways he is simply brilliant. Ultimately I found this film unsettling and unpleasant – although the final credits purport to make the movie a tribute to women in the military, it uses themes of sexual violence in a manner which I found offensive.
The storyline - based on a novel by British writer Robert Harris - has nothing to do with the supernatural; instead the title (in Europe) refers to the ghost writer (the title in the US), ably played by Ewan McGregor disguising his Scottish accent, drafted in to rewrite the memoirs of recently retired British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) who has just been charged with war crimes in the conduct of his government's ant-terror policies. The action is set on America's north-east coast but the film was shot in Germany (including the island of Sylt in the North Sea) with seemingly endless rain-lashed days.
This is a work with a lot of baggage: Harris has written some accomplished (if sometimes formulaic) novels and adapted his own book for the screen which gives it a rather 'by the numbers' feel; Harris famously broke with Tony Blair when the latter took the UK to war over Iraq and this is a thinly-disguised critique of a political leader he once admired; while the director Roman Polanski could never have shot the movie in the United States, where it is set, because he is wanted there on charges of child abuse and indeed had to edit the film while under house arrest in Switzerland.
It is one of those films that works fine at the time, with sustained tension and a final twist that is satisfyingly sudden and dramatic, but once out of the theatre one quickly realises that the plot devices are both contrived and implausible.
I saw this film, about young American women in a private psychiatric hospital in the 1960s, several years after its release, by which time its main stars Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie had exhibited some bizarre behaviour in real life. Indeed an early reference to stealing when one could afford the goods seemed almost prophetic in the case of Ryder. They both give strong performances (Jolie won an Academy Award for best supporting actress) and Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave add to the talent on display in this sensitive and moving work based on the actual experience of Susanna Kaysen (the Ryder character) who is diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder, a controversial description.
"The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest"
This is the Swedish-language film adaptation of the third of the three "Millennium" crime novels (titled "The Aircastle Which Got Blown Up" in the original) penned by the Swedish crusading journalist Stieg Larsson. As with the second segment and the six-part television series, the director is Daniel Alfredson.
Once again Noomi Rapace is utterly compelling as the laconic Lisbeth Salander, unable to overtly express emotion whether to a caring, young doctor or a crusading, middle-aged journalist, and she looks stunning in the final court-room sequences. Michael Nyqvist is still the crumpled, "Millennium" investigator Mikael Blomkvist who takes extraordinary risks for someone who cannot return his love and with someone who does in spite of all.
For me personally, the second film was not quite as outstanding as the first and this final part of the triptych is not as satisfying as either of the other two. Of course, we have the resolution of the mystery (although quite what The Section was up to is confusing) and the nemesis of the bad guys (although the arrest of geriatric former spies is hardly that dramatic), but much of this long work is rather slow and the pacing uneven. Wonder what Hollywood will make of the remakes?
Links:
official web site click here
the "Millennium" trilogy click here
"The Girl Who Played With Fire"
This is the Swedish-language film adaptation of the second of the three "Millennium" crime novels by the Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson and it's really essential that one sees "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" first because vital themes are continued. Most middle segments of trilogies lack the bright originality of the first and the satisfying denouement of the last, but this one will certainly hold your attention until the girl kicks the hornet's nest.
In this central segment, Lisbeth Salander (the mesmerising Noomi Rapace) is much more central to the narrative and indeed she and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) are only physically together for moments, although often in electronic communication and always in emotional connection.
The criminality being investigated by the "Millennium" team is more woman-hating in the form of sex trafficking and again the plot contains some surprises but this time the villains are reminiscent of Bond baddies like Blofeld and Jaws. The violence is not quite as stomach-churning as in the first episode, yet there's still plenty of bone-crunching, blood-splattering action. Lisbeth here is the most death-defying female avenger since The Bride in "Kill Bill Part 2".
Links:
official web site click here
the "Millennium" trilogy click here
I've viewed with admiration the luminescent Johannes Vermeer painting in The Hague; I've read with delight the inventive novel by Tracy Chevalier [for review click here]; and now I've seen the magnificent film directed so admirably by Peter Webber. Young Scarlett Johansson, perfectly cast in the eponymous role, is in another work released at the same time ("Lost In Translation") in which she has a charged, but unconsummated, relationship with a middle-aged man. Here it is Colin Firth who - in a more challenging role than he is normally offered - is the Dutch artist, captivated by his maid Griet who clearly understands his creative processes much more than his highly-strung wife (Essie Davis) or his domineering mother-in-law (Judy Parfitt). The scene where Vermeer pierces the girl's ear and draws blood is clearly a metaphor for what does not take place.
Set in Delft in 1665, this co-production was not shot in that location or even Amsterdam but in Luxembourg and it looks simply sensuous. Indeed this is a jewel of a movie with so many sparkling features: the glorious cinematography by the Portuguese Eduardo Serra who makes marvellous use of natural light, the production design by Ben vas Os who captures the detail of 17th century Dutch life, the authentic costume design by Dien van Straalen, the bravely (but properly) sparse dialogue by Olivia Hetreed, and the haunting music by the French Alexandre Desplat. The acting is uniformly impressive and, besides the roles already mentioned, credit should go to Tom Wilkinson in a strong, if unsympathetic, performance as Vermeer's (invented) patron.
Links:
official web site click here
web site for book click here
"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"
This is the Swedish-language film adaptation of the first of the three "Millennium" crime novels (titled "Men Who Hate Women" in the original) penned by the Swedish crusading journalist Stieg Larsson and published only after his premature death to astonishing worldwide acclaim. The eponymous young anti-heroine is the tattooed and pierced ace hacker, bike rider and bisexual Lisbeth Salander, brilliantly portrayed by Noomi Rapace, who becomes the accomplice of middle-aged, disgraced investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). Together they work on a crime four decades old: the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from a gathering on the island owned by the powerful and dysfunctional Vanger family.
This is a much colder and darker Sweden - both physically and metaphorically - than the open and tolerant society that we usually imagine and often makes for uncomfortable viewing, especially in scenes of sexual violence. Yet we have no choice but to watch because the narrative is so compelling and twisting and we want to know how the unlikely pairing of Mikael and Lisbeth will work out almost as much as we need to discover who is behind all the sadistic murders and how retribution will be delivered. A Scandanivian version of "Silence Of The Lambs".
Links:
official web site click here
the "Millennium" trilogy click here
When I first started going to the cinema some 40 years ago, the sword-and-sandal saga was a staple part of the repertoire. Many of the films came from Italy and starred the ubiquitous former Mr Universe Steve Reeves who ironically died a few days before the opening in Britain of “Gladiator”. Easily the best of these epics was “Spartacus” (1960), but I had thought this type of film long dead before the talented and resourceful Ridley Scott – director of such magnificent work as “Alien”, “Blade Runner” and “Thelma And Louise” – decided to revisit (but surely not revive) the genre. The plotting and values of “Gladiator” are decidedly old-fashioned, but the skill and technology deployed to bring it to the screen are state-of-the-art.
The basic storyline is thoroughly familiar to anyone who has seen “The Fall Of The Roman Empire” (1964): following the death of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius in AD 180, a noble soldier seeks to restore the glory that was Rome in the face of the corruption and brutality fostered by the new, young emperor Commodus. But, whereas “Fall” was very slow and stilted, from the opening battle scene in Germania to the closing combat in the Colosseum, “Gladiator” is simply thrilling. Above all, this is a tribute to Scott who is a consummate film-maker: the photography, the cutting, the sound, the music are all brilliant. Having twice visited the ruins of the Colosseum, I had wondered what it looked like originally and know I believe I know as a result of Scott’s computer-generated recreation of the mighty edifice and its visceral exhibition of violence.
Yet the director is well-served by his stable of actors. New Zealand-born Russell Crowe, who first came to the fore in “L.A. Confidential”, is inspiring as Maximus, a hero as honourable and laconic as he is brave and resourceful. Plato would have been proud of him, since he believed that the only man fit to rule was one who did not want to do so. Joaquin Phoenix has a deeply unsympathetic role as Commodus but brings immense depth to the evil part. Among the other performers are an unusually venerable Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius, Derek Jacobi who was so magnificent in the British television series “I, Claudius”, and Oliver Reed who drank himself to death during the filming in Malta.
It was always going to be difficult to bring to the screen the Philip Pullman trilogy “His Dark Materials” because, while the novels are full of characters and images that state-of-the-art CGI could render so effectively, the complex themes present a real challenge for what is essentially an entertainment medium. For those who haven't read the 1,300 pages, it's going to to be difficult to appreciate all that is going on while, for fans of the novels (such as me), anything left out or changed is going to be something of a let down.
It's no wonder then that the film rights were sold 14 years before the first movie hits the screens and that American writer-director Chris Weitz at one stage pulled out of the whole enterprise. But it's been worth it. While not a total success, this is a fine adaptation of the first novel - “Northern Lights” in the UK and “The Golden Compass” in the USA - that must surely lead to the filming of the other two novels.
The casting is excellent. Thirteen year old acting newcomer from Brighton, the oddly-named Dakota Blue Richards, is convincing as the teenage heroine Lyra Belacqua, even if her 'urchin' accent wanders somewhat. Nicole Kidman is brilliant as the icily smooth Mrs Coulter. A bearded Daniel Craig is strong as Lord Asriel. Eva Green has the exotic looks for the witches' leader Serafina Pekkala. Sam Elliott is suitably gravelly as the cowboy aeronaut Lee Scoresby.
But, of course, a fantasy film like this would not work without convincing special effects and, generally speaking, these are first class. The various daemons are well-executed and the giant polar bears – especially the heroic Iorek Byrnison (voiced magisterially by Ian McKellan) – are splendid. Naturally all sort of compromises are necessary to bring a work as complex and controversial as this to the big screen but, to my mind, it is acceptable to turn the Magisterium from not simply a representation of the Catholic Church but to a symbol of all religious and political authoritarianism.
Links:
official web site click here
Philip Pullman's site click here
my review of the book "Northern Lights" click here
I always look forward to films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and movies likes “Con Air” and “The Rock” provided great entertainment, but “Gone ..” disappointed me. It seemed like an excuse to show flashy cars and yet another prolonged chase sequence with little thought of the need for a plot. Nicolas Cage – the master car thief pulled out of ‘retirement’ – is at his most languid; fine actors like Robert Duvall and Will Patton are seriously under-utilised; I would have liked to have seen more of Angelina Jolie (I know ..); our own Vinnie Jones inexplicably has only one speaking opportunity; and I’m becoming a little tired of the callous villain always being a Brit (this time Christopher Eccleston).
Link: official web site click here
A little over a decade after its demise, communism in Europe is becoming an historical curiosity. In Prague, there is now a Museum of Communism (next door to a McDonalds) and here we have a German film which satirises the Honecker regime through an inventive storyline set just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
A middle-aged woman - movingly played by Katrin Sass, a successful actress in the former East Germany - goes into a coma due to a heart attack and, when she resumes consciousness eight months later, her son (Daniel Brühl) is warned that a sudden shock could kill her, so - through increasingly complex contrivances - he has to maintain the fiction for her that communism is still thriving. This requires him not just to disguise, but ultimately to subvert, history by representing the pulling down of the wall as a kindly act by the Communist regime to admit West Germans disillusioned with the excesses of capitalism.
Perhaps one needs to have lived in an East European communist state (or at least to have visited one - as I did) to appreciate the bitterness of some of the humour and certainly this movie has done incredibly well in its native Germany. But anyone can enjoy this work, directed and co-written by Wolfgang Becker, for its mixture of quaint love of a son for his mother and sending up of some of the injustices and indeed absurdities of the former regime. The most memorable visual image is a brief, but somewhat surreal, one involving a statue of Lenin, seemingly bidding farewell to a failed system permeated by waste and deceit.
Link: official web site click here
When one thinks of director Ridley Scott and actor Russell Crowe, one thinks of "Gladiator", but here they are together in a lighthearted piece with comedy and romance and a setting in rural France which is about as far away from centurions and the colosseum as one could imagine. The choice of director is odd because the action movie is clearly his forte, but the casting of Crowe is even odder, although he affects a reasonable British accent and brings a light touch to this tale of tough City shark falling for the charms of the French vineyard and the Gallic restaurant owner (Marion Cotillard) very loosely inspired by Peter Mayle's book "A Year In Provence". It's entertaining enough but give me Maximus any day.
This is a life-affirming movie with some excellent dialogue (and a deliciously dirty joke from Minnie Driver), co-written by close friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, both of whom star. Damon is the eponymous dysfunctional maths genius, while Affleck is his life-long buddy in the non-aspirational working-class world of south Boston. Stellan Skarsgård, as an MIT maths professor, and his friend Robin Williams, as a psychiatrist with his own problems, try - in their very different ways – to rescue Will but, in the process, discover things about themselves and their friendship. Williams is excellent in a role which in some respects reprises his performance in “Awakenings”, while Damon exhibits a raw young talent as the tortured rebel.
I didn't think that they made films like this anymore, but I'm certainly glad they do because it is a sheer delight. In many ways, it is the quintessential British movie, combining the social satire of the old television series "Upstairs, Downstairs" with the conventions of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, the whole thing populated by a magnificent collection of British character actors. Yet it was directed by the American Robert Altman who has become the master of the ensemble movie, whether it be "The Player" or (less successfully) "Pret-Á-Porter".
Gosford Park - actually Syon House in west London, near where I live - is the stately home of Sir William (Michael Gambon) and Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas) who invite some relations and guests to a shooting party in 1932. Before too long, Sir William has been murdered and writer Julian Fellowes - who gives the cast some wonderful lines in a richly-textured script - ensures that there are plenty of suspects with a whole variety of theoretical motives.
In fact, Sir William is such an unpleasant character that we don't really care that he's been killed and the rites and rituals of the British upper class are dissected with such fascination that we don't care that much who killed him either. But tradition decrees that we have a murderer and a motive and we are given at least one of each.
There are so many fine performances from so many well-known (at least to a British audience) faces - Alan Bates, Jeremy Northam, Charles Dance, Clive Owen, Robert E Grant, Helen Mirren, Emily Watson, and many more - but it is the aged Maggie Smith as the Countess of Trentham who has some of the best lines and ultimately steals the show.
Link: official web site click here
Since "A Fistful Of Dollars" in 1964, Clint Eastwood's body of work as an actor and director is without precedent in volume and accomplishment in the history of Hollywood. After directing only in the triptych "Flags Of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jiwa", here he returns to the combined acting and directing (plus producing) of "Million Dollar Baby" and again the core of the movie is the relationship between Eastwood's character and a young person seeking a way in the world.
Now aged 78, Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a Silver Star veteran of Korea who subsequently spent 50 years on the production line at Ford, where he acquired his immaculately-preserved 1972 Gran Torino. Grizzled and growling, he has just lost his beloved wife, is estranged from his two grown-up sons, and has a fractious relationship with his ethnic neighbours, notably the Hmong family next door. There is a lot of anger and racism in this film but, book-ended by funerals, it ultimately manages to be up-lifting and redeeming.
We're told that this will be Eastwood's last acting role (his 45th since adopting the pancho of The Man With No Name) but hopefully we'll still see his directorial work (this being his 29th such outing).
I'm not a reader of comic books but I enjoy a good super-hero movie and recognise that comics are a rich source of characters for such films. Marvel has given us the likes of Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men and Thor, while DC Comics has been racing to catch up with Superman, Batman and now "Green Lantern". Since most of these are franchises, that's one huge battery of super-heroes and new movies inevitably struggle to differentiate themselves and offer something new.
"Green Lantern" is entertaining enough but lacks distinction. Character-wise, it is hardly special. We have the usual alter-ego, a human with childhood issues and a disbelieving girlfriend, although at least Hal Jordan (a lantern-jawed Ryan Reynolds) is a cocky test pilot with 'the right stuff'. We have the familiar evil destroyer which in this case looks strangely like the dust cloud that raced through the streets of New York City after the collapse of the Twin Towers (deliberate?).
Filmed on location in Sector 2814 of the Universe, "Green Lantern" scores in scenes set on the Green Lantern Corps home planet of Oa, but is at its weakest when it tries to be funny. I saw it in 3D which worked well for many sequences - and even for the early credits when a short scene sets us up for the inevitable sequel.
One is bound to compare “The Green Mile” with “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994): both were written and directed by Frank Darabont, both are based on stories by Stephen King, and both are set in American pre-war prisons. “Mile” has been much more successful at the box office, but it is not as good a film. The acting is uniformly excellent, with another fine performance by Tom Hanks leading the kindest collection of prison warders – with one notable exception – ever seen on celluloid and Michael Clarke Duncan moving as the mystical black giant John Coffey (his initials are not unintentional) accused of murdering two young girls. The script and the direction are so good that one accepts the presence of a performing mouse called Mr Jangles. And there is an important social message about the revolting nature of capital punishment by electrocution. However, in the end, the whole thing is just too sentimental and silly and too long into the bargain. A urinary infection plays a role in the plot and it may well be that, after 3 hours 9 minutes, the toilet is not that far from your mind.
Link: official web site click here
British director Paul Greengrass + American actor Matt Damon = "The Bourne Supremacy", "The Bourne Ultimatum" and now "Green Zone", so we know what to expect here - and we're not disappointed. From the opening seconds, we're into the action with the trademark Greengrass 'in the action' frenetic camerawork and sharp editing. Although the film is said to be inspired by the non-fiction book "Imperial Life In The Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for The Washington Post, the conspiratorial storyline is the invention of Greengrass who developed the original script.
If the tension isn't as excruciating at that other Iraq movie "The Hurt Locker", at least "Green Zone" has a narrative and poses some questions, hard questions that many American viewers would probably were rather not aired: what was the source of the 'intelligence' that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction? why was the source so readily believed when the evidence was so thin? could the bloody insurgency which followed the relatively easy initial occupation have been avoided if the Americans had been willing to work with elements of the Iraqi army?
See the movie and think about the issues. As a central Iraqi character puts it: "It's not up to you to determine what happens in this country."
An acerbic and irascible weatherman, played by Bill Murray, is required once more to cover the odd tradition of the even-odder named Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania whereby each February 2 an attempt is made to predict the onset of spring with the aid of a furry friend. Except this time, he finds himself in a time loop, endlessly repeating the same 24 hours. In this inventive comedy that is a kind of latter-day version of "It's A Wonderful Life", he can either go crazy as he descends further into the nightmare or he can learn to become a better man and win the heart of TV producer Andie MacDowell. No prizes for guessing which, but it's all done with a lot of fun and some charm.
All reviews by ROGER DARLINGTON.
Last modified on 20 September 2011
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