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reviews from our award winning critics
Italian For Beginners ***
Director
Lone Scherig
Starring Anders Berthelsen
Three couples, intertwining
families and friendships, comic misunderstandings - the Italian
for Beginners blurb smacks of Cold Feet. Add to that a storyline
as quirky as its characters and a director with a passion for
improvisation, and you have an unusual cinematic affair.
Italian for Beginners is about
unusual affairs. Romance between a criminal and a hairdresser,
a pastor and a chronic klutz, an impotent man and an Italian
beauty focuses director Lone Scherig's observations on how people
love. At her best, the first female Dogme director side steps
cliché with homage to small-town Danish life that feels
genuinely spontaneous. At her worst, the plot becomes a lumpy
excuse to showcase every 'revelation' of the enthusiastically
workshopped actors.
There are some witty moments
when outsider Andreas, beguilingly played by Anders Berthelsen,
discovers that the pastor he is to replace threw an organ from
the gallery. And some touching ones when a bodged funeral yields
parents in common to lonely thirty somethings.
But the great weakness of the
12th Dogme film is its heavy-handed commitment to glorifying
the whimsical. Resolutely low key, the 112 minutes feel utterly
unedited and only cultivate enough dramatic drive for a TV series
or a prequel . This may have been the point, and Scherig's manifesto
proves engaging at times, but the film ends up unsatisfying.
Helena Thompson
Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) ****
Director
Alfonso Cuaron
Starring Maribel Verdu
'Play with babies and you'll
end up washing diapers' - wise words from the clever protagonist
of Alfonso Cuaron's intelligent and compassionate film. This
is a grown up story about just about everything, from grieving
and dying to loving and growing up.
It's also a labour of love,
like Memento, another brainchild from two hard-thinking brothers.
And also like Memento, the story is told in an unusual way to
unfold with careful deliberation. As a young woman determines
to control her own destiny by embarking on a trip with two seventeen
year old boys, the two boys' coming of age and the girls' journey
of self discovery (beguilingly evoked by the lovely Maribel Verdu)
proves far from immature.
Sexuality is of course at the
heart of the matter. The plot centres on the lusts and loves
of adolescents struggling to make sense of their hormones. These
spiritual cowboys are capable of fancying beautiful women, each
other and …you've guessed it ...each others' mothers.
The title is actually the worst
joke of the film. On the whole the themes of lost innocence and
youth relived are beautifully honed to keep the humour bitter
sweet. The muted story telling techniques also preserve some
clever twists, allowing the film to make full reserve of its
final resolution. Fearless and surprisingly engaging, this film
is as subtly risk-taking as its heroine.
Helena Thompson
Lake Placid ****
Director
Steve Miner
Starring Bill Pullman, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Platt, Bridget
Fonda
SUBSTITUTE a great white shark
for a giant crocodile, and, yeah, okay, this could seem like
a bit of a Jaws rip-off, but that's only so far as the basic
plot and a lot of crazily splashing water goes.
A picturesque fishing lake
is under a reign of terror courtesy of the croc from hell, but
rather than simply lay on the scary special effects that such
a premise implies, director Steve Miner (Halloween H2O) takes
things on a wildly different, and welcome, tangent as he plays
the munchy material mostly for laughs.
Those laughs come from the
interaction of a set of characters that could have walked straight
out of a Carl Hiasson comedy-thriller and include Brendan Gleeson
as a hilarious hic Sherrif, Bridget Fonda as a narky paleontologist
and, probably funniest of all, Oliver Platt's snob whose hobby
just happens to be swimming with alligators. (15)
Girl, Interrupted ***
Director
James Mangold
Starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg, Vanessa
Redgrave
In truth this is a run of the
mill offering that takes a hackneyed approach to mental illness;
the afflicted are mostly wise beyond our ken and/or wrongly incarcerated.
What makes it well worth catching is the performance of Angelina
Jolie who, as Lisa, electrifies the screen with her portrayal
of a charismatic social misanthrope.
Unfortunately, Jolie is second
lead to Winona Ryder who appears so concerned to respect the
feelings of main character Susanna (on whose true story this
is all based) that her normally effervescent presence is boiled
down to a series of doe-eyed stares. Susanna, the story's narrator,
is shoved into a mental home after a failed suicide bid but it
is clear throughout that her illness is both minor and vague.
In contrast her fellow inmates have serious to life-threatening
problems, a mis-match that drains Susanna's observations of real
insider-knowledge legitimacy.
Cue Lisa, fully charged, wise
to the fabrications of a hypocritical world, ready to light the
spark of chaos. Hitch a ride to her rollercoaster and there's
thrills to be had. Pity someone, be it mental nurses (Goldberg
and Redgrave ham it up alarmingly), Susanna or director Mangold,
feels duty bound to step in and switch the current off. (15)
Being John Malkovich ****
Director
Spike Jonze
Starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener
CRAIG SCHWARTZ (John Cusack)
gets a big break when he's sucked into John Malkovich's head;
now he can earn cash by charging an entrance fee to others who
want to follow his intravenous path.
As premises go, this one's
hard to beat. Happily, the rest of the film does the brainstorming
start immense justice. Director Spike Jonze milks the obvious
laughs with wit and charm and knows just how far to go with the
theme of being inside someone else's skin - that's not too far
at all, in case you wondered, or otherwise the surreal tone could
have been blown earthward in a frenzy of touchy-feely nonsense.
Instead, Jonze settles for
having the movie hop and jump about in crazy twists committed
by daft characters like Diaz's Lotte, Craig's other half, and
Maxine, his would-be passionate indulgence. So, go and see it
- there won't be a film like this until some smartypants makes
one about Frank Dobson's beard, and you don't want to get stuck
in there now, do you? (15)
The Insider ****
Director
Michael Mann
Starring Al Pacino, Russell Crowe
TALES of ordinary Joes and
Jills who hold secrets that could expose corporate giants are
usually confined to comic books and TV movies, where good and
evil are demarked clearly enough for small children and small
brains to spot the difference.
The Insider, a film about two
men and their battle against tobacco companies, could so easily
have fallen into the superhero trap but instead follows in a
tradition of intelligent thrillers with a social point that includes
the likes of Al the President's Men, Silkwood and The China Syndrome.
Jeffrey Wingard (Russell Crowe)
works for fag firm Brown and Williamson where he discovers proof
of the harmful effects of nicotine. Wingard teams up with TV
producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) to take on the merchants
of weed, a course of action that leads the pair through an increasingly
frightening, superbly executed, thriller scenario where tight
plotting, warts-and-all characterisation and clever scripting
are never sacrificed for the obviously compelling social message.
(15)
Tumbleweeds ****
Director
Gavin O'Connor
Starring Janet McAteer, Kimberley J Brown
DIPPY but engaging mom Mary
Jo (Janet McAteer) keeps running away from romantic entanglements,
dragging her worldly-wise daughter with her. Yeah, you've heard
that one before, most recently in the likes of Limbo and Anywhere
But Here but, just because this is a formula film, doesn't mean
it's a poor one.
The fact they were usually
followed a well trodden, dusty road never stopped great westerns
emerging from the morass, and so it goes here. The comparison
is a good one, oh yes, because the single-mom flick is fast becoming
the early 21st century version of 20th century cinema's most
evocative genre. For lone gun-slinger read flighty hip-swinger.
Like the John Wayne archetype, film single-moms find it hard
to put down roots and so it proves in Tumbleweeds where McAteer
is in electrifying form as a woman who chooses wrong partner
after wrong partner but manages to keep the raindrops from falling
on her pretty head.
She can't do it on her own,
of course. Our old gunman friend couldn't either, relying on
his weapon (spelt p-e-n-i-s, as every psychoanalyst will tell
you) to blast away the baddies. Single-mom's weapon has also
arisen from the loin region in the shape of an inevitably feisty
daughter played with considerable charm and bitchy verve by Kimberley
J Brown but her quarry lies deep inside.
What makes Tumbleweeds bloom
brighter than any number of cringeworthy TV movies you're liable
to encounter? The performances are superb in a heightened naturalism
type way, the script is spot on (writer Angela Shelton based
it loosely on her own life) and O'Connor keeps the whole thing
whipping along thus avoiding the usual longeurs of lingering
sentimentality. Go get 'em pardners. (12)
The Talented Mr Ripley ****
Director
Anthony Minghella
Starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow
“I ALWAYS thought it would
be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody,” says
charming social climber Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) as he contemplates
his new life among the decadent rich.
The distinction between real
and fake is the underlying philosophical query in The Talented
Mr Ripley, a provocative film which deserves more plaudits than
it has so far received. Grumpy critics have complained at director
Minghella's use of lush travelogue style photography and great
looking actors. Surface candy covering up a bland story, they
say. But here the point is that the film's beautiful sheen helps
draw us into Ripley's view of things; like him we're bowled over
by the indulgent pleasures on offer, not least of which are Jude
Law as wealthy Dickie and Gwyneth Paltrow as his girl Marge.
Ripley has struck lucky by
being employed to go to Europe and fetch back to the US Dickie
who is seen by his family to be wasting his life. But Ripely's
initial happiness at being allowed to partake of the rich man's
table quickly gives way to a well drawn jealousy powered by a
murderous lust which shatters the shimmering surface, fake or
real. (15)
Topsy-Turvy ****
Director
Mike Leigh
Starring Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall, Lesley
Manville
THERE'S a scene in long-running
London theatre hit Buddy (relevance will become clear) in which
the Texan rocker and his pals are studio bound, struggling to
come up with a new tune. Suddenly, eureka! Holly comes up with
a riff and we all get to share the thrill of creative tension
relieved. That all takes about three minutes. Topsy-Turvy takes
about three hours to make the same point as celebrated 19th century
operetta duo Gilbert and Sullivan pull round a declining career
with The Mikado.
But while Topsy-Turvy can claim
no special insight into the fiendish dynamics of the creative
process it is a superbly entertaining piece, almost a superior
soap opera, on the goings-on behind the curtain. In common with
previous Mike Leigh efforts (such as Secrets and Lies, Naked,
High Hopes) an improvisational approach to acting and scripting
makes for great characterisation, from the two leading men (Broadbent
is Gilbert, Allan Corduner is Sullivan) down to the smallest
of bit parts.
Better still, that strength
wins Topsy-Turvy the accolade of the first anti-costume
drama as the incredible range of textures and colours on show
are revealed as mere sackcloth compared to the rich variety of
humanity, in all its aching lusts, petty jealousies and over-reaching
ambitions. (12)
The End of the Affair ****
Director
Neil Jordan
Starring Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore, Ian Hart, Stephen Rea
TO these eyes director Neil
Jordan's best work so far was Mona Lisa, a slippery, frightening
tale of unrequited love among a trio of underworld figures in
1980s London. 'Was', because Jordan has returned to similar themes
with still greater force for The End of the Affair, an adaptation
of the Graham Greene novel.
Once again, we're in a London
on the point of collapse, though this time it's the Second World
War rather than economic crisis that forms the backdrop. Once
again there's a threesome involved, with Julianne Moore as Sarah
forming a stunning pivot between husband Henry (Stephen Rea)
and lover Maurice (Ralph Fiennes). Two years after his brief
fling with Sarah, Maurice bumps into Henry who suspects his wife
of messing around. Maurice does what any friend would do and
hires a private eye to catch Sarah at it. But instead of another
bout of extra-marital carnal knowledge, Sarah has fallen for
the more spiritual love of the church.
Two things drag these melodramatic
elements above the ordinary, and well above at that. One is Jordan's
treatment of the source material, which is both faithful to the
book's ambience of tortured jealous rage and creative in using
multi-viewpoint techniques to convey the complexities of the
shifting-sands type of relationships on view. Two is Moore, an
actress who deserves all the awards going for her portrayal of
a woman struggling beautifully to stay in control of her inner
demons and saints. (18)
A Room for Romeo Brass *****
Director
Shane Meadows
Starring Paddy Considine, Ben Marshall, Andrew Shim
TOY STORY 2 might be the best
film to take kids to this week, but A Room for Romeo Brass is
definitely the best take on kids this millennium, if not the
last.
Writer/Director Shane Meadows
says that at age 25 he is scared of losing touch with the stuff
that made his childhood tick and so wanted to get something on
celluloid before it was too late. The result is a movie of such
pinpoint accuracy that it will dance on the funnybone and hurt
the heart of anyone with half a memory of when they were 12,
the age of the two boys whose close friendship is put under intense
strain by the arrival on their Midlands estate of strange older
kid Morrell.
Meadows is particularly strong
on the little rituals, looks and nuances from childhood, things
that give the movie scarcely rivalled authenticity. Better still
he is assiduous in not falling prey to the kind of cheap nostalgia
all too common in mainstream films involving kids, achieving
this feat mainly through the figure of Morrell who takes one
of the pair under his increasingly psychotic wing as the other
languishes in hospital. (15)
American Beauty ***
Director
Sam Mendes
Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Benning, Thora Birch
COINCIDENCE or otherwise, just
at the point at which America appears poised to rule all the
known world, its filmic output has suddenly begun to ask some
awkward questions.
American Beauty takes as its
premise the mid-life crisis of Lester (Kevin Spacey) whose two
decade long sojourn in the suburbs has turned him into a seething
mess of bitterness. It's the same kind of starting point as for
the likes of Company of Men, Election and Fight Club. American
Beauty never quite manages the sustained attack and follow-through
of that illustrious group, but instead draws its considerable
strength from the cast who imbue often sketchy characters with
a depth and humanity that keeps eyes on the screen until the
tagged-on end.
Spacey is spellbinding as the
guy who's had enough, entirely convincing when going back to
the future for a cliched escape route that revolves around drugs,
fast cars and loose women. Annette Benning, as his sparring partner
of a wife, provides exactly the right amount of frailty beneath
her character's outward steel and Thora Birch, the couple's sulky
daughter, comes close to hitting the witty-brattish highs of
Roseanne's Darlene.
Elsewhere it's a lot more patchy
than the hype for this film would suggest. Secondary characters
like Mena Suvari's Angela, the cheerleader Lester lasts after,
and next door neighbour and closet gay Colonel Fitts are close
to laughable, a word also applicable to the storyline which is
handed a wholly ill-fitting thriller element, presumably to give
the character studies some forward momentum but which end up
spinning the whole deal dangerously close to collapse. These
are things which deserve to stop American Beauty from achieving
greatness but which should nevertheless not be allowed to get
in the way of some fine and poignant acting. (18)
Limbo ****
Director
John Sayles
Starring Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, David Strathairn, Vanessa
Martinez, Kris Kristofferson
JOHN SAYLES tends to attract
criticism from two related areas; first that he lays on the sociological
stuff too thick, second that his desire to do so gets in the
way of forward plot momentum. To begin with Limbo appears to
be an exercise in proving the critics right. We get a fairly
long-winded, if beautifully shot, treatise on the precarious
economic situation in Alaska as it affects a group of fishermen,
most especially one Joe (David Strathairn).
But pretty soon, Joe's hell
- and heaven - have been rendered intensely personal with the
arrival in his life of Donna (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), her
surly daughter Noelle (Vanessa Martinez) and a petty criminal
brother. The switch from general slump to individual angst is
the crux of the film. If you buy it, Limbo pans out to superb
effect where even the apparent politically loaded first part
makes retrospective sense; if you don't the whole thing falls
apart. To these eyes and ears it works and that's mainly thanks
to Mastrantonio and her evocative singing voice.
Not since Robert Altman's Nashville
have the contradictions inherent in country music been used to
such memorable effect. Donna might turn a buck by renting her
larynx out for sentimental standards but in private, with Joe,
her voice becomes her own, a telling and touching comment on
the film, relationships and, this being Sayles, the world. (15)
Summer of Sam ****
Director
Spike Lee
Starring John Leguizamo, Mira Sorvino, Adrien Brody, Jennifer
Esposito
FEAR was the key to the New
York Italian community in Lee's break through Do the Right Thing,
a subject the director has returned to here with similar success.
Instead of rising black power, this time the Italian Bronx is
scared stiff by the presence of a serial killer in its midst,
a certain David Berkowitz, aka the Son of Sam.
While that switch robs this
film of the kind of heart felt political comment exhibited in
Do the Right Thing, it allows for a more wide-ranging look into
the splits of a community on the edge. Main character Vinny is
the archetypal Latin stud. He has a stunning wife, lovers dotted
around his neighbourhood and the consequent respect of his peers.
But the sickening crimes perpetrated by Berkowitz unhinge his
primitive urban paradise to such an extent that by film end Vinny's
lost all the goodies he once held dear. Meanwhile, Vinny's best
buddy, Ritchie shocks his pals by turning punk but comes out
of the movie with morality on his side. Other characters back
up the sense of white trash being consigned, along with Berkowitz,
to history's dustbin .
While Lee's attitude to traditional
Italian Americans might be questionable, not to say offensive,
what the director does manage to convey better than any other
around today is the sense of minute by minute fear of the future
of a supposedly tight-knit community riven by internal fracture
that is the sickening hallmark of much of modern urbanity. (18)
Bringing Out the Dead ****
Director
Martin Scorcese
Starring Patricia Arquette, Nicolas Cage, John Goodman, Ving
Rhames, Tom Sizemore
"DO YOU have any music,"
Paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) asks an astonished array
of relatives as he tries to revive their loved one. Pierce goes
on to explain that a favourite tune might help perk the patient
up but the initial blank faces of his audience reveal much about
his own dislocation from normality.
Pierce knows that he's too
immersed in the miseries of his job but is so haunted by the
lives he's failed to save that he can't quite bring himself to
quit. One woman's ghostly image, in particular, dogs him throughout
his three night shifts of Bringing Out the Dead while another
woman, ex-junkie Patricia Arquette, offers some kind of temporary,
stitched together hope for the future.
The connection between struggles
of the spirit and struggles of body is made with customary Scorcese
skill, although such is the overwhelming sense of a city (New
York) on the edge of physical collapse that the soul often gets
buried beneath the rubble. That's good news in most ways as it
suits both the paramedic metier and Cage's mobile acting talents
but some viewers might balk at the consequent lack of a normal
human touch. Just turn up the music folks. (18)
Muppets From Space ***
Director
Tim Hill
Starring Hulk Hogan, Ray Liotta, Rob Schneider, Andie McDowell
THE MUPPETS have always had
an uncanny knack of attracting star names to their fluffy fold.
The TV show, at its height in the late 70s and early 80s, was
at its best when poking soft fun at showbiz's finest and previous
movie outings have repeated the trick, most notably when Michael
Caine turned in a top performance as Scrooge in A Muppet Christmas
Carol.
This time Hulk Hogan, Ray Liotta,
Andie McDowell and Rob Schneider take their bows in Muppetland
in a Christmassy story that has Gonzo in the role of an apparent
illegal immigrant from somewhere across the universe. Space this
might be, but the makers have thankfully refrained from filling
time with special effects tricky and concentrated instead on
the usual witty dialogue and spot on musical numbers. Adults
dragged to the cinema in the holidays by their kids will be grateful
for that, at least. (U)
The Iron Giant ****
Director
Brad Bird
Starring the voices of Eli Marienthal, Jennifer Aniston, Harry
Connick Jnr
Few full length cartoons reach
the consistently beguiling standard on offer here. Maybe that's
because toons are often seen as refugees from the three minute
format and therefore in need of songs (Disney) or dubious, bland
storylines to stretch the time out. The Iron Giant needs neither.
Instead it banks on a superbly realised title character and the
naive wisdom of a young boy for strength of character and their
fight against the assembled forces of an evil state for plot
propulsion.
It's great that big issues,
ranging from The Bomb to witch hunts, are touched apon with deft
ease as our heroes join battle with their foes, but even better
is the way The Iron Giant shows its cartoon rivals (see Inspector
Gadget, for instance) that it is possible to make intelligent,
funny films that adults and kids can both enjoy without having
to play dumby-dumb-dumb. (U)
The Limey ****
Director
Steven Soderburgh
Starring Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Luis Guzman, Nicky Katt,
Barry Newman, Lesley Anne Warren
There's a debate going on in
these parts about Terence Stamp. Has one of the great London
actors of our time come up with a superb performance as a hard
nosed villain confronted with the excesses of LA, or is his display
a big helping of Cockney ham? In an important sense, the argument
is redundant as any over acting from Stamp merely highlights
the out of time and place feel the film is keen to get across.
As its title implies, The Limey
revolves around our hero who plays Dave Wilson, a connected ex-con
who arrives in LA to investigate the murder of his daughter.
From the outset, Wilson is forced to lean on his hard man persona
in order to successfully negotiate both the brutal pastures of
the city of fallen angels and the mysterious circumstances concerning
his loved-one's demise.
There's brother-from-another-planet
laughs to be had along the way, some of which do break for the
ham border, but increasingly it is Wilson's vicious determination
that is at issue as he appears to move beyond the fantastic lies
surrounding his daughter to the bitter truths of his own past.
Wonderful. (18)
The Straight Story *****
Director
David Lynch
Starring Richard Farnsworth, Harry Dean Stanton, John Farley,
Everett McGill
David Lynch, in movies like
Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, is famous as the director who
fishes perverted characters from the seething undercurrents of
smalltown tranquillity. In The Straight Story, he heads in the
opposite direction by concentrating on the tale of Alvin Straight,
a mostly normal old guy whose main eccentricity - a plan to complete
a 350 mile trip to see his sick brother by tractor-mower - is
not hidden in some suburban basement but is out on the freeway
for all to see.
Lynch also plays it straight
with the plot, eschewing the kinds of flashback twists and turns
with which he is usually associated. Wisely he holds on to his
uncanny ability to spot the often absurd nuances of ordinary
life because without such observations, The Straight Story could
have slipped into soggy sentimentality. Instead, given a quirky
setting on which to re-construct his life story, the old man
- played superbly by 79 year old stunt actor Richard Farnsworth-
cuts a convincing, moving figure as he motors his way across
the Midwest. Coupled with beautifully shot scenes and some haunting
music, it makes for one of the movies of the year. (U)
The World is Not Enough ****
Director
Michael Apted
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Robert Carlyle, Robbie Coltrane, Sophie
Marceau
Everyone has a favourite Bond
film, but very few 007 fans put any of the more recent episodes
at the top of the list. That may be about to change because The
World is Not Enough is without doubt the best Bond for many a
long year.
It's got all the usual elements,
from spectacular chase sequences to corny puns and ridiculous
villains and doesn't really have anything new to add to a series
that is now parts 19 long. But director Michael Apted puts all
the familiar bits together in superb fashion and Pierce Brosnan
now looks even more at ease as our hero. Better still, Robert
Carlyle brings all the menace of his part in Trainspotting to
the role of arch villain, one who wants to rule the world by
dominating its oil supplies.
Carlyle's megalomaniac has
a a rare condition by which he feels no pain. Bond, on the other
hand, has a rare ability to get stunning woman to soothe his
aches and pains, not least Sophie Marceau who switches on the
girl power as Elektra. (12)
A Walk on the Moon ****
Director
Tony Goldwyn
Starring Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, Anna Paquin, Liev Schreiber
Just as Tony Blair feels he
is missing out on the internet revolution his kids are enjoying,
so many parents of adolesents were jealous of their offspring's
frenzied leap into the sexual upheavals of the 60s.
Such is the premise of this
film where Pearl (Diane Lane) and daughter Alison (Anna Paquin)
spend a holiday together in upstate New York. Mom decides to
find her buried youthful self by getting off with a hippie but
tries to stop Alison from experimenting in similar fashion while
Pop's world is turned upside down when he finds out what's been
going on in his absence. There's also reference made to the huge
political themes of the time, notably Vietnam, but the film is
at its strongest on the deeply personal stuff, especially the
mother-daughter relationship which is thankfully drawn with neither
excessive mateyness nor across the usual cliches of generation
gap bitchiness. Instead what we have is that rare beast - an
ambivalent melodrama, one that tugs at the heart strings by pointing
up the pleasures and pitfalls of dumb hope 60s style rather than
by taking the kind of laughable moonstomp through relationships
represented by so much of victim-culture 90s material.
By the way, anyone who can
furnish us with the name of an 80s TV movie with a similar plot
gets our wholehearted thanks and a prize of as yet undetermined
nature. (15)
Fight Club ****
Director
David Fincher
Starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton
THERE was a time, in movies
like Desperately Seeking Susan or After Hours, when shallow yuppies
spiced up their dull lives by hitching their suits to the wild
and weird underworld. But with avant-garde attitude now merely
a lifestyle affectation, mainstream males have been forced to
look closer to home for their extra-curricular kicks. In the
Company of Men had businessmen taking out their work place frustration
on a female co-worker and now Fight Club goes the logical next
step as blokes beat each other up in a frenzied bid to avoid
post-modern alienation.
It works. Brad Pitt is electrifying
as the guru of the secret club at which men get to throw cathartic
punches at fellow members while the yuppy he introduces to the
scene, played by Edward Norton, manages the transformation from
bored exec to vital nutter with great skill. Better still Fight
Club doesn't, as you might expect, bottle out midway through
by making the protagonists go all sheepish on their brutal response
to plastic culture. It's big hit trajectory doesn't exactly offer
a solution to the ills of the world either, mind you, but the
energetic attack hits plenty of deserving targets along the way.
(18)
The Sixth Sense ****
Director
M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment
BRUCE WILLIS is a much better
actor than his gossip page persona would suggest and here he
proves the point with a performance, as a psycho-analyst to a
boy who is visited by the dead, of powerful and subtle intensity.
Not that Willis is alone in
receiving top acting marks. Haly Joel Osment is remarkably affecting
as the 8 year old boy whose morbid secrets Willis must help overcome;
a world away from the standard cute Hollywood poodle-kid. At
times the quality of performance is needed as the intricate plot
threatens to get lost but even that minor criticism is blasted
out of the water by one of the best final twists in recent movie
history. This is horror movie-making of a superior kind where
over the top gore is eschewed and where, as in the Blair Witch
Project, tension and the fear of fear are carefully cranked up
to a point that induces an eerie, long-lasting emotional claustrophobia.(15)
The Winslow Boy ****
Director
David Mamet
Starring Nigel Hawthorne, Gemma Jones, Jeremy Northam, Rebecca
Pidgeon, Matthew Pidgeon
WITH the role of fathers in
late 20th century families the subject of almost daily tabloid
debate, Mamet's decision to return to the century's beginning
to plunder one of the classic stories of paternal pride is a
clever one.
A modern day Ronnie Winslow
would probably be hounded by a phalanx of salivating stress counsellors
after being expelled from a Naval Academy for petty theft but
back in Edwardian times, the buck stops with Daddy, here played
with tremendous subtlety by Nigel Hawthorne. The temptation for
Hawthorne and Mamet could have been to play the injustice card
and soothe our angst on family breakdown with a soporific tale
of father-son bonding through shared stoicism. Fortunately, actor
and director eschew such banalities and concentrate instead on
the double edged sword of the patriarch's power; creative when
strong and infused with moral purpose, destructive when contaminated
with dull, stubborn pride.
Quite properly, the lines between
those two extremes are never clear cut and are blurred all the
more by the film's other characters, among them a proto-feminist
daughter (Rebecca Pidgeon) and lazy older son (Matthew Pidgeon),
who help make this costume-drama much more drama than costume.
(U)
The Blair Witch Project****
Directors
Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Starring Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael Williams
IF you can remember the terrifying
sensation that swept up your spine when your older brother/sister
switched all the lights off and told you ghosts stories, you'll
have a pretty good idea of the territory we're in here. The creepy
movement from disbelief through uncertainty to sheer terror is
handled with great skill as we are shown the supposed video diary
of three student filmmakers who disappeared making a documentary
in the deep, dark woods.
As with the stories kids tell
each other when they should be asleep, it is mainly the strange
sounds that instil fear in the audience as the visuals are necessarily
paired down and dark. That's all you need to know really. The
great thing about The Blair Witch Project is that it is exactly
as you think it will be but it it'll scare you half to an unnatural
death. (15)
Gregory's Two Girls ****
Director Bill Forsyth
Starring John Gordon Sinclair, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Carly McKinnon
In the original Gregory's Girl,
Gregory is tricked into a date with one girl after being led
on by another. This time around, our bumbling hero is once again
enticed to a meeting with the girl of his desire but is shocked
when she confronts him with geo-politics in the form of a local
factory which is churning out instruments of torture for Third
World buyers.
That such a massive shift in
tone and subject matter is accomplished without the cogs of plot
and reality falling off is a testament to both the skill of director
Forsyth and the acting talent available to him. Sinclair, especially,
is superb as the teacher caught in his personal life between
affection for a fellow staff member (Kennedy) and lust for one
of his pupils (McKinnon) and in his moral life one exposed suddenly
to the kind of need for action his quiet life has so far managed
to avoid.
Add a twist and more of the
usual kooky Forsyth humour and you have a dish heated up and
ready to be served to anyone with a hunger for a movie with a
bit of bite to it, but one that won't be to the appetite of those
hoping for a simple reprise of the original. (15)
Felicia's Journey ***
Director Atom Egoyan
Starring Elaine Cassidy, Bob Hoskins
'The banality of evil' is itself
a concept rendered banal by incessant repetition but one which
continues to intrigue film makers from old masters like Hitchcock
to newer auteurs such as Neil Chute. In Felicia's Journey, the
girl of the title travels from Ireland to Birmingham to seek
out the boyfriend who has left her in the pregnancy lurch. There
she happens apon catering manager Hilditch (Bob Hoskins) an apparently
run of the mill kinda guy but one with an unfortunate tendency
towards serial murder.
Felicia is slow to spot the
impending danger, but such is the skill of Hoskins' performance
that you can understand why. Indeed, Hoskins is in his best form
since Mona Lisa as he exacts every nuance of doubt from his character.
Elaine Cassidy is the perfect foil, the blankness of her expressions
drawing out her new friend's idiosyncrasies bit by bit. On top
of that, the movie is perfectly paced; its slow lingering first
third gradually giving way to a more jumpy final section. See
it and weep that other thrillers come nowhere near its creepy
sophistication. (12)
Mifune
****
Director Soren Kragh-Jacobsen
Starring Anders W Berthelsen, Jesper Asholt, Iben Hjejle
Previous Dogma films have both
been about using a pared down cinematic style all the better
to batter the cosy assumptions of smug audiences but Mifune goes
in a different direction, rejecting the manic camera shakes of
Idioterne and Festen in favour of a more traditional approach.
Director Soren Kragh-Jacobsen
admits that he just wanted to make a simple, banal even, love
story with a nice happy ending. Whereas Idioterne and Festen
deconstructed two very different groups of egotists, with Mifune
Kragh-Jacobsen homes in on the dynamics at work between individuals
and has adopted a style to suit his quiet, poignant, ends.
His base is the story of a
man who returns to the lonely farm on which he grew up in order
to help out with his mentally-challenged brother. Love blossoms
when a runaway prostitute shows up. But it is the details that
Mifune scores, transcending an apparently bland and cliched subject
matter with the wonderful attention given to the nuts and bolts
of relationships, whether they involve new passions or old siblings.
(15)
Election ****
Director Alexander Payne
Starring Matthew Broderick, Chris Klein, Reece Witherspoon
WHAT with Watergate and Monicagate,
you'd have to be naive to the point of unborn not to have some
feel for the sleaze and manipulation that underscores American
politics. There've also been plenty of films on the issue, from
Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Nashville to Primary Colours.
So all the fanfare for Election based on its unique satirical
punch is perhaps a bit loud. That's no criticism of the movie,
for in many ways Election is better than its hype.
The obvious point is that it
is unusual for this kind of content to arrive in the form of
a teen movie, even if this one signals its non-formula approach
by featuring a cast of unknown actors to back up Witherspoon
and Broderick. But there's more. The two leads give superb performances
as a cynical go-getter and a teacher tired of cynicism; there
is a powerful sexual tension which helps motor the thing along
and the fringe characters, such as dumb jock Chris Klein who
Broderick uses to run against Witherspoon in the school hustings,
work extremely well in widening the film's field of vision.
Indeed, rather than confining
itself to passing comment on the ne'er do wells that try for
office, Election manages to tap into the closely observed misanthropy
that has recently informed the likes of In the Company of Men
to such devastating effect. Oh, and it's very funny, too. (15)
LA Without a Map ****
Director Mika Kaurismaki
Starring David Tennant, Vinessa Shaw, Julie Delpy, Vincent Gallo
'NORTHERN lad goes to Hollywood
in film directed by Finnish oddball' is as mixed a set of ingredients
as any fruit cake. Either the film's going to be a bitty load
of offal or an inspired melting pot. Or both.
LA Without a Map teeters close
to the edge of ridiculousness at regular intervals but each time,
some telling culture-clash joke rescues things and of we go again
on another jaunt through the streets of America's least hospitable
city with Bradford undertaker Richard (David Tennant) and Hollywood
waitress Barbara (Vinessa Shaw) as our guides.
The plot, it has to be said,
it pretty thin; Richard is jealous, Barbara is ambitious sums
it up, but thanks to the hilarious satirical observations and
the speedy pace of the whole daft project, entertainment is never
off the menu. (15)
Ravenous
****
Director Antonia Bird
Starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones,
David Arquette
THEIR stage coach stuck in
the Nevada mountains, a motley crew of western types run out
of food and decide to eat each other. Cleverly, we aren't allowed
to see such culinary bravura but learn of the food fest through
the mouth of Robert Carlyle who has escaped to find help to rescue
the last woman of the party. If you think about it, the actual
eating of the average cooked human being would look much like
the actual eating of the average pig, chicken leg or rare steak
but denied such visual evidence, the hungry mind is left to imagine
the worst.
That leaves Ravenous the job
of coming up with something a bit tasty when the rescuers finally
reach the hapless picnickers, a task completed with extreme glee.
Indeed, an obvious delight in the messy subject matter is the
film's running thread as its tone pinballs around between comedy,
horror and pathos. If that wasn't enough, music from Damon Albarn
and Michael Nyman is the icing on a decidedly bloody cake. (15)
The Thomas Crown Affair ****
Director John McTiernan
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, Denis Leary
PIERCE BROSNAN is often landed
with roles that play to his suave, not to say smug, exterior
and first impressions might be that the tradition continues here.
Brosnan reprises the part made famous by Hollywood legend Steve
McQueen as the bored millionaire who steals a priceless work
of art for kicks and, in a shock to many, does it better. Whereas
rugged McQueen struggled to trade up and was left to rely too
heavily on his natural charm, Brosnan is coming from the opposite
direction. James Bond doesn't have to prove his sophistication
and can instead revel in the opportunity to shed a few layers
of the aforementioned smugness, largely in reaction to a wonderfully
nuanced, arousing performance from Rene Russo as the insurance
investigator detailed to catch a thief.
Whatever you do don't go thinking
this is another Entrapment. As well as the acting, everything
is superior about Thomas Crown, from a witty script, and well
marshalled plot, even to the action sequences. (15) 18/08/99
Another Day in Paradise ***
Director Larry Clark
Starring Melanie Griffith, Vincent Karthesier, Natasha Gregson
Wagner, James Woods
JAMES WOODS as Mel is the gnarled
star of the show in this reprise of Bonny and Clyde for the modern
era. Mel cajoles his low-life partners in crime to lift their
eyes to the prize of illegal fame that awaits them, but takes
little account of his own failings - not least an explosive temper
fuelled by drink and drugs - and so leads his happy band on an
increasingly doomed race through western dirt tracks.
Director Clark had some success
with Kids, a film most noted for its infantile shock tactics
and threadbare 'message'. This time around he uses the extreme
violence more creatively and more occasionally to often devastating
effect. Woods is the key; all motive and action are channelled
through his deliberately overbearing performance, although his
gal Sid (Melanie Griffiths) deserves applause as well for her
ability to remain unflinched when it counts. (18)
12/08/99
Place Vendome ****
Director Nicole Garcia
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jacques Dutronc, Bernard Fresson,
Emmanuelle Seigner (15)
A JEWELLER with underworld
connections dies forcing his wino wife to wise up and get a life
for herself, shorn of his distant and debilitating protection.
Catherine Deneuve as the widow in question might start with a
few obvious advantages over others in a similar life-changing
plight, but director Nicole Garcia is careful not to rest too
heavily on the charisma of her star. Instead she sends Deneuve
on a trying trail through her husband's past where new resources
are called for and at the end of which the long forgotten prize
of love lies tantalisingly in wait.
So much for past mistakes and
dreams of the future. In the here and now there are the small
problems of hubbie's scheming mistress and the gangland connections
to sort out, tasks through which Deneuve gradually gathers enough
momentum to confront the rest of her demons. Garcia has taken
on some big issues here but manages to pull the whole thing off
with subtlety and panache to help a classy cast outshine the
baubles.
05/08/99
Austin Powers: The Spy Who
Shagged Me ***
Director M.Jay Roach
Starring Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Rob Lowe, Verne Troyer,
Michael York (12)
NOT as funny as Myers' first
outing as the goofy Bond spoof, but still capable of bringing
the house down.
This time round Myers/Powers
gets to indulge his creative talents a little too deeply with
three roles for the man himself and even more walk on roles for
celeb pals than before. Where the movie scores, of course, is
on the level of daft, gentle pastiche. For although The Spy Who
Shagged Me crashes through the taste barrier with endless double
entendres and bucketfulls of lavatory humour, it is essentially
a kindly take on the 60s excesses of Swinging London, a factor
Myers is at pains to point out.
This, then, is no coruscating
probe into the dopey ideals and fashionable conceits of the Love
Decade, but a summer pantomime for pop culturally clued up 90s
types who want a few laughs.
30/7/99
It All Starts Today ****
Director Bernard Tavernier
Starring Philippe Torreton
IF THE kids were united they'd
do worse than elect primary school head teacher Daniel (Philippe
Torreton) as their leader, such is the man's obvious passion
for his calling.
Daniel's school faces government
cutbacks in the midst of worsening social problems but he is
determined to preserve for his charges, and for the rest of us,
a burning, fast moving sense of hope.
It is this that saves the film
from the intrusion of any preachiness or sentimentality as Tavernier
piles up the problems but piles up too Daniel's fighting responses.
Not that the man is some cod Michelle Pfieffer/Lenny Henry style
saint, soothing his flock with beatific balm. He can't fix things
on his own but can still point to a saner way of doing things
than the rush to social collapse exhibited by the kind of economically
depressed region picked out here. (12)
Star Wars: Episode 1 - The
Phantom Menace **
Director George Lucas
Starring Jake Lloyd, Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman
QUI-GON JINN (Liam Neeson)
and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), two dashing Jedi knights,
are detailed to rescue Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) whose
planet - Naboo - is under threat from the Trade Federation.
That's the premise of the film
and you can probably guess how it all turns out, barring a few
spectacular accidents along the way. Throw in a wide variety
of cute robots, goofy aliens and speedy space ships and you'll
also spot that director Lucas has hardly moved on for the floor
plan of the original Star Wars made a quarter of a century ago.
So what has changed over that
time? First, the novelty of the original is necessarily missing,
a huge loss to a film cycle which has relied so heavily on its
perceived uniqueness. Second, the humour has been flushed down
the pan, or at least all jokes have been stuffed into the mouth
of the annoying alien Jar Jar Binks, which amounts to the same
thing. Third, the much vaunted CGI (Computer Generated Imagery)
graphics are, for these eyes at least, an embarrassing flop.
CGI still promises more than it delivers, especially when used
in conjunction with conventional film techniques. In short, the
ordinary stuff looks better, more real, than the overblown, stiff
jointed computer efforts.
Most of this harping, of course,
won't mean a toss to the movie's intended 8 year old audience
but long standing, unblinkered Star Wars fans might wish to avert
their eyes and keep faith with their earlier memories. (15/7/99)
Ten Things I Hate About
You ****
Director: Gill Junger
Starring Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Heath Ledger, Larisa
Oleynik
SHAKESPEARE continues to be
the main man of Hollywood and here finds his Taming of the Shrew
updated to a Seattle college where Kat (Julia Stiles) is to be
wooed by bad boy Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger).
Kat is a shrew with a persuasive
line in modern day girl power, an attitude that has so far made
her unreachable as far as the inferior sex is concerned. But
it's a character trait that needs to be remoulded if her sister
Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) is to be allowed to go on a date, Bianca
having been told by her protective father that she can't step
out with guys before her older sibling.
Bianca's rich, desperate beau
hatches a plan that centres on bribing Patrick to win Kat's affections
and the whole plot is off with a merry swagger.
Ten Things doesn't have the
same quotient of Shakey gags as, say, Shakespeare in Love, but
it goes its own way in witty, quick paced fashion that helps
keep it well above the phalanx of teen comedies we are usually
saddled with. (8/7/99)
Last Night ****
Director Don McKellar
Starring Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, David Cronenberg, Genevieve
Bujold
IT's been the subject of thousands
of drunken conversations the planet over, but it's still a compelling
one; what would you do if the world was about to end?
Most people mention sex somewhere
along the line, and so it is for one character in Last Night
who is busy working his way through a list of women he wants
to shag. For some of the Toronto dwellers featured here, things
aren't quite as simple. A few decide to ignore the impending
doom and concentrate on doing the little things they would have
done anyway, others begin love affairs that could have lasted
a lifetime.
Bit by bit we learn more and
more about each of the main characters as the final minutes approach,
McKellar's closely observed script deepening the involvement.
Armageddon might be approaching
but heaven it is to have films like this to lighten the gloom.
24/6/99
The Mummy ****
Director Stephen Sommers
Starring Rachel Weisz, Brendan Fraser, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo.
RACHEL WEISZ makes her Hollywood
debut to stunning effect in this silly, funny, creepy Indiana
Jones clone to challenge Catherine Zeta-Jones's spot at the top
of the Brit-Femmes-Over-There-League. But before Michael Douglas
starts unzipping his trousers, he should be told that Weisz is
already spoken for.
Maybe she has been swapping
tips with comedian partner Neil Morrisey as here her ability
to pull off the cute one liner is top rate and is indeed one
of the keys which make this such an enjoyable movie. Humour and
some thrilling action sequences apart, the other thing that makes
for a winning film is simply the subject matter.
Yes, let's here it for Mummies.
Mummies have been off the big screen for too long. They might
not be as outright scarey as the more common ghouls, freaks and
monsters but, thanks to copious bandages and the allure of ancient
Egypt, they create heaps more mystery.
This sleepy-creepy factor is
skin crawling enough to let writer/director Sommers get away
with the obvious Mummy-wakes-up plot and powerful enough on its
own to let him concentrate with great glee on the aforementioned
laughs and action. (12) 25/6/99
Celebrity ****
Director
Woody Allen
Starring Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, Joe Mantagna
THE DIRECTOR himself, of course,
has a mighty axe to grind with the ferocious world of media manipulation
but here he cleverly saves his heaviest for fellow celebs rather
than the gawping faces of the press corps.
As in many of Allen's films,
it is the apparently less important scenes and roles that make
the biggest impressions; Leonardo Di Caprio as a spoilt brat
young star, Charlize Theron's supermodel who is more absurd and
pinpoint than anything Robert Altman managed in The Player and
the leering plastic surgeon played by Michael Lerner.
That's not to say the media
are left unscathed. Kenneth Branagh plays to his acting strengths
as a smug reporter whose marriage has foundered on the rocks
of serial adultery. The plot revolves around Branagh's succession
round of New York first nights and previews, a tour of duty that
means he is constantly bumping into ex-wife Judy Davis and her
new man, smoothy TV producer Joe Montagna.
Typical Allen, in many ways,
but in others much colder and vicious than before, and all the
better for it. (18) 18/6/99
Cruel Intentions ***
Director Roger Kemble
Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon.
COMPARED to surprisingly well-received
dross like She's All That, Cruel Intentions is a teen movie of
some considerable stature.
If that seems like damning
with faint praise, it's not meant to, as the skill involved in
creating a teen movie that is also quite intelligent must not
be underestimated. Under cover of sex, director Roger Kumble
manages to slip in some acute social and behavioural observations
that make for moments of genuine jaw dropping and belly ache
laughter.
The plot is Liaisons Dangerous
more or less. Phillippe bets step-sister Gellar that he can deflower
the headmaster's daughter. If he loses he gives her his Jag;
if he wins he gets Gellar herself. Both lead actors are superb,
providing just the ratio of sexual longing to social cynicism
and keeping us guessing as to their deep intentions until the
end, which is perhaps the one disappointment. (15)
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