magenpie Reviews

Men in Black II (2002)

A great big stinking pile of crud

[19 August 2002]

Who let *this* dog out?

"Things are getting strange, I'm starting to worry, this could be a case for Mulder and Scully"... er, well, no, not really. The Man-and-Woman in Black would be falling about at the inanity of it all. Just what is this film about? It's not entertainment, that's for sure. Seems like it's just a simple-minded exercising of the power of modern computer graphics. And cynical money-making. "Men in Black did really well." "Yeah, and I've got this great new software." "Ok then, looks like we got ourselves another train full of gravy!"

The first fifteen minutes give it away, really. There's barely an original thought on show; instead we get images and ideas ripped off from Lexx, Buffy, Mission: Impossible, The X-Files, Doctor Who, Buffy again, ... and those were the just ones I noticed - not being a great sci-fi or action movie buff, who knows what others I missed?

The acting (if I dare call it that) seems to have been inspired by watching too many cardboard cut-outs standing outside small shops advertising this week's special offer. To call it two-dimensional would be an insult to Flatlanders. Will Smith coasts through apparently thinking "Hey, you saw me in Men in Black and you liked what you saw; just try to remember the good times we had back then"; Tommy Lee Jones seems to have decided that simply looking confused most of the time will do; Rosario Dawson pouts beautifully but with her physiognomy that really isn't a struggle. Various hangers-on come on strong like cast-offs from Star Trek - hey guys, just because you're in a stupid costume and we can't see your face (or in one unfortunate case we can see your face twice) doesn't mean you can get away with simply lumbering from A to B and lunging wildly when you get there. Rip Torn obviously said something unpleasant to someone in the make-up department, for why else would he be half-submerged behind that ridiculous face-fungus? Finally (in the humanoid department) Lara Flynn Boyle as the naughty alien chasing its particular Holy Grail and blowing up/slicing in two/eating anyone in its way is neither nasty, cunning or funny enough.

As for the non-humanoids... hey, a talking dog, with att-i-tuuuude, now *that's* a sure-fire winner. Hmmm, how can I put this? *Oh* *no* *it's* *not!* This one's not clever, it's not original, it's not funny. Especially when it serves absolutely no plot purpose whatsoever. The same goes for those stupid wormy things. Whatever happened to respect for the audience's intelligence?

Normally I rate films out of 10 but this one doesn't deserve the extra neuron-firing. Alas, if the viewing I went to is anything to go by, it's going to make more than enough money to lure the producers into making a third installment. May I plead with the aliens already living their undercover lives on our humble planet: please, take over Hollywood before it's too late!

Minority Report (2002)

Stunningly disappointing

[1 August 2002]

If we could see ourselves coming out from watching films like this, would we ever go to watch them in the first place? And what would happen to the film industry then?

There are interesting philosophical and moral paradoxes arising from using a prediction of the future to change that future, but given the average audience's intelligence and attention span, it was probably wise (if disappointing for some of us) of Spielberg to steer clear of them and instead present yet another rather tedious variation on the theme of "the system's not the problem, the people running it are". (Hollywood loves to do this comfort-food-for-the-soul stuff: if things aren't going your way, it's not tough, it's not because that's the way things are, it's because somebody out there doesn't like you and there *is* something you can do about it. (Well, usually; sometimes it tries its luck with "the system is the problem, try to smash the system, oh dear you can't, that's tough", as for example in "Falling Down" which worked so well you wonder why it doesn't try it more often.))

So once again we are led down the familiar twisty-turny route where the good guy is the bad guy only he's not really because he's trying to find the real bad guy and the bad guy isn't really bad he's just doing what the other bad guy told him to and the guy in the middle is just your average Joe with good and bad bits but then I suppose that's true too of the good guy and the bad guy... in the end your head spins at the casual unpredictability of just about anyone with any independence left in them. (Well, any *man*: the Madonna Syndrome is positively *flourishing* here. (No, not *that* Madonna!))

Fighting to keep on the path of Controlled Narrative Unravelment is that Everyman-wannabe Tom Cruise. Since we're in Philip K. Dick territory, the inevitable comparison with Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner" only serves to show how implausible Cruise is as the flawed cop fighting to solve the mystery of the apparently equally flawed system. He has neither the gravitas to carry the righteousness nor the rough edges to carry the imperfections (even with those slightly crooked teeth, which even as I write he's having straightened - more's the pity), whereas Ford had both in bucketloads. Cruise in ten years' time? That could be a different story.

So, an unoriginal plot (and one with more holes in than a pair of fishnet stockings) and a poorly chosen central cast member. Any redeeming features? The special effects are certainly impressive (and so they should be judging by the credits: screenful after screenful of hard-pressed behind-the-scenes mouse wranglers, with the not inconsiderable list of actors tacked on at the end): if you're fond of spiders, you'll love the sleek cuties here; if not, you may never feel safe in the bath again! As for messy organ transplants... yuk, 'nuff said. Meanwhile the prosthetics people had fun with a face mask that could have been a recycled reject from "The Elephant Man". Did they really mean to make Cruise turn briefly into a cross between Leonard Nimoy and Leonard Rossiter? I don't think so, but it gave me and my companion some light relief.

Neither as thought-provoking as "A.I." nor as much fun as "Mission: Impossible". I have seen the future, and it doesn't involve my watching this film again. 5/10.

Alias Betty (2001)

Leaves you wanting to find out more

[22 July 2002]

Sometimes the hardest things are so simple. A lost child is surely irreplaceable, isn't it? Well, that depends on how unconventional you're prepared to be. And if you've got no money but you're left looking after your sugar mommy's house, how to make ends meet? Depends how good a con artist you are. And if your mother presents you with a horribly unwanted gift which you can't return without getting you or her into deep, deep trouble? Maybe it will grow on you. Point of view is everything.

Three people with three problems. But that's just scratching the surface. Mothers, daughters, lovers, husbands, doctors, policemen, smugglers: all of life is here.

Adapted from Ruth Rendell's book "The Tree Of Hands", this French film presents lives less as part of a tree and more as a spider's web. A little tug here leaves a permanent distortion over there and a gap on the far side. Rarely can cinema have produced such a dramatic, amusing yet tense demonstration of the old saw "No man is an island" (though since most of the central protagonists here are female, the well-meaning but philologically-challenged PC lobby might wish for a slight re-phrasing).

With all these "Other Stories" around, there are two obvious potential pitfalls. Switch from story to story too quickly and you just confuse your audience; do it too slowly and they might fail to see the connections. Fortunately this film strikes the perfect balance; admittedly it does this by sacrificing a certain depth of character in some cases, but this simply leaves us wishing this were merely the first installment of a trilogy, or rather, chronologically speaking, the second. It would be interesting to find out how these characters got to where they are now, and, given the way that their actions have such dramatic effects on each others' lives, equally interesting to see how that spider's web changes shape in the future. Given that Betty Fisher herself ends the film about to start a completely new life, anything could happen. 8/10.

The Business of Strangers (2001)

Why can't Hollywood make more films like this?

[9/10 · 17 June 2002]

Every once in a while the bloated self-satisfied monster that lives in La-La Land wakes up in a strange mood. Maybe it's boredom; maybe it's indigestion from eating too much popcorn. Who knows? Who cares? We who hand over our hard-earned cash to keep the wolves (or coyotes, perhaps) from its door should be grateful when this happens, because it results in the occasional small-scale acutely-observed unsettlingly intimate piece of cinematography which reminds us that, despite the monster's influence, there still exist in that land a handful of real human beings trying to make a living by making films about... real human beings trying to make a living.

Look up! See that glass ceiling? No? well that's probably because you're a man. Or short-sighted. Workaholic Stockard Channing thinks she's got her nose pressed up against it. All that hard work, and for what? The Man At The Top wants to talk to her. Pronto. Why, he's even insisting on meeting in some God-forsaken half-built airport hotel in the middle of corporate nowhere. What is it that could not possibly wait until she gets back to the office? It's a recipe for a bad mood, so it's no surprise when she takes it out on her poor hapless assistant Julia Stiles.

This neatly divides our sympathies. Channing's about to have her entire raison d'etre whipped away, and Stiles simply had the bad luck to be an unimportant traveller at the mercy of the weather and the airlines. Now they're both stuck in that hotel with no-one to take it out on except each other.

Except that nothing is quite as it seems. It would be giving too much away to explain how, exactly (and indeed the film never quite makes the truth of the matter clear), but suffice to say that power and powerlessness don't always reside where they seem to. Anyway, this film isn't really about what these women get up to (or what happens to the unfortunate headhunter (sorry, executive recruitment consultant) that Channing has asked to find her a new job). No, it's about how they very quickly find out that they are, more or less, the same person 30(-ish) years apart. Strong women. Frustrated women. Independent women. Different perspectives, of course: Channing's frustration stems from her perception of that glass ceiling, whereas Stiles' is because she hasn't found a way through life yet. Of course it's not a comfortable discovery (how many of us really want to see ourselves from the outside?) but in the end they grudgingly accept the truth about themselves and each other.

All this is on the whole nicely observed and faultlessly acted. One moment in particular stands out for sheer economy of effect: Stiles seems to be about to take her bra off when she pauses, pokes her tongue out and closes the door in our face, managing effectively to say "Get lost!" to Channing, us and the Hollywood machine in one split-second gesture. (Economy seems to have been a watch-word here - how many films have a cast of 10? And that includes the non-speaking parts.)

It's a pity, though, that there are a few places where the theme of "women in a man's world" is handled a little clunkily. A line like "Whisky? That's a man's drink" is on the unsubtle side, as is the scene where the two women start to explore an unfinished hotel wing, passing a sign saying "Danger: no admittance". (Careful now - you haven't got metaphorical hard hats on your pretty little heads.) But these are minor blots on the landscape of an otherwise excellent film.

9/10.

Pollock (2000)

We see how he paints, but not how he thinks

[17 June 2002]

Or "Another Beautiful Mind" (tells the story of a gifted but unconventional man who needs and finds the love of a good woman but doesn't treat her as well as she deserves; includes performances by (the generally under-rated) Ed Harris and (the rather over-rated) Jennifer Connelly; wins a Best Actress Oscar (no, not JC this time)... ok so it was released the year *before* "A Beautiful Mind" but it didn't reach the UK's shores until after that film (why? Who decides these things?)).

Or "A Load Of Pollocks" (well we did get glimpses of many of his works).

Or simply "Pillock" (talented chap but you wouldn't want to share your life with him). (A fellow film-goer suggested that last title. If you're reading this, thanks, Meryl!)

Whichever way you look at it (and after all, when it comes to many of his paintings, it's hard to say which way is up) this film is a canvas with a great deal of paint on it but a big hole in the middle. Jackson Pollock denied any aspect of representation in his work, saying that it was simply existential. Not for him the overworked artistic justification of "it means whatever you want it to mean", but instead "its existence is its meaning" (art for art's sake, I suppose). Indeed, to quote approximately from the film, "You don't look at a bed of flowers and sweat over what it means".

Fine, so the *art* exists in its own right. But what about the *man*? This is, after all, a film about the man, not about his paintings. Here's another quote from the film: "Art reflects the spirit of its age". Ostensibly that contradicts the existentialist credo, of course, but at least it gives us a handle on his mind, for if art reflects the spirit of its age then surely the artist is the conduit for that reflection; thus, by seeing how the art changes in response to changing circumstances, we might be able to form some idea of the nature of that conduit. Well we certainly get an eyeful of the evolution of his work, from post-Picasso through splodges to the more familiar splatter-work (although curiously not the stunning "Blue Poles"), but where is the corresponding social and historical thread? These were "interesting times" for many Americans, especially free-thinking intellectuals, but we see almost none of that; apart from an amusing romp through the ever-restless world of female fashion, it's as though the artistic community lived in a world of its own, evolving independently from the rest of us. Perhaps it did, in which case the art that it produced merely reflects... well, the art that it was producing. Now *there's* "art for art's sake" for you.

It's by no means all disappointment, though. With the exception of Jennifer Connelly, there's not the merest sniff of a weak performance (if there was an Oscar for Best Ensemble Performance then this would surely have been a very strong contender) which can probably be attributed to Ed Harris' own long-standing passion for Pollock and his work. What film could be really bad in the end, backed by such a combination of commitment and competence? Meanwhile the scenery is as lovely as the New England coast can be, which, while ultimately not all that important, complements the acting rather as the Guggenheim Gallery does its contents. So in the end this film is, appropriately enough, rather like Pollock's paintings. Well executed, well presented, but something which is best enjoyed without asking "why?".

7.5/10.

Gosford Park (2001)

An awful lot of cooks but the broth stays tasty

[27 May 2002]

Reviewing "Iris", I reckoned that letting actors "just get on with it" was something that probably only Mike Leigh could get away with. Well it looks as if I need to extend that list of one. Apparently Robert Altman can manage it too. How? Take so many familiar actors that you lose count after the first ten minutes; add a plot centred around that pair of English dramatic standards, the class war and the whodunnit; throw in a pinch of ironic mild self-indulgence in the form of a character plausibly representing Altman himself; stir vigorously and let the flavours mingle. Result? A film that combines solid acting, thoughtfulness, wit and mildly unexpected events to leave us feeling nicely satisfied, neither hungry for more nor bloated. This is especially remarkable for a film that seems to aspire to, and certainly achieves, no great height of originality. No ground-breaking cross-cultural mental cuisine this; rather, a well-judged piece of nursery comfort food that leaves us thinking "Oh, they *do* still make 'em like that after all". 8/10.

About a Boy (2002)

About to wish I hadn't bothered

[27 May 2002]

Think of a naughty word. Double it. Treble it. Repeat with feeling.

No, not (only) most of the opening words of "Four Weddings And A Funeral", but (also) the probable reaction on hearing that Hugh Grant was to play the part of Will, at least by those who've read the book. I haven't read any of Nick Hornby's work but even I can see that this was a terrible miscasting. Will is the very opposite of sympatico. No need to work (large inheritance), no social conscience, no emotional maturity, he's the kind of oafish boy-in-a-man's-body that we all love to despise. So whose bright idea was it to let Hugh Grant turn him into an apologetic moderately-charming young-man-in-need-of-some-competent-mothering? There must be dozens of actors better suited to the part. Neil Pearson sprang to my mind immediately, if only because Grant's voice-overs sounded quite like Pearson, which meant I could try to enjoy most of the film by mentally pasting Pearson over the top of Grant. I nearly succeeded, too, but for the major problem that this film shares with too many others, namely the schizophrenia of good actors in shallow parts.

Nicholas Hoult turns in a highly watchable performance as Marcus (the other, younger "Boy") and Toni Collette reminds us that she can be almost as chamaeleonic a performer as Nicole Kidman. (I know I'm not alone in suspecting that if Collette had allowed herself to be dragged into the Hollywood mainstream we would be benefitting from seeing her in much more interesting roles. Ok, she's not a looker, but then neither is Meryl Streep.) But I digress; their parts and those of others here are poorly fleshed. Perhaps this is a problem inherent in turning a piece of literature into visual entertainment: a book can afford to spend a whole page describing someone's thoughts about a single short incident, whereas a film has to paint an overall impression in a few frames. Still, that's surely a poor excuse for central cardboard cut-out characters like the depressed leftie right-on organic single mother and the group of "all men are bastards except for you 'cos you're a single father" women, all carefully cast to be unattractive so of course they couldn't hang on to their men, they didn't deserve to did they? Please, give me a break.

A film of two parts, then. 3/10 for Grant and the cardboard folk, 7/10 for Hoult's and Collette's acting. Call it 5/10.

Iris (I) (2001)

Good acting, poor screenplay

[5 April 2002]

Let's get one thing straight: this is *not* a biopic of Iris Murdoch. Instead it's a glib and half-hearted attempt to demonstrate the patent untruth of the saying "Age shall not wither her" (if writing blatant lies were an Olympic event, whoever penned that little aphorism would be right up there with the medal-winners).

Simply juxtaposing shots of Young Iris and Old Iris engaged in similar activities, cutting between the two at an almost subliminal rate, is rather too cinematically clichéd for words. Worse, we never see the painful details of coping with the slow and inevitable decline into Alzheimer's; one moment she's scribbling away, the next she's practically dried up completely. Where's the drama in that? It's almost as if the director said "Right, we've got Dench, we've got Broadbent, we've got Winslet, who needs a script, let's just let them *act!*" Well I'm sorry, but if you're going to take the Mike Leigh approach, you've probably got to *be* Mike Leigh.

Still, although the film may be sorely lacking in guts, the actors put up fairly worthy performances. Hugh Bonneville's eager puppy of a Young John Bayley deserves special mention, holding its own with the three Big Names that everyone has focussed on.

Nice idea, good acting, shame it pulls its punches. 6/10.

P.S. Am I the only one who always wants to pronounce "biopic" to rhyme with "myopic"?

The Closet (2001)

Cultural differences leave me lost and confused

[5 April 2002]

You know how entertaining it can be to turn the sound down on the television and invent your own dialogue? If you're imaginative enough, you can end up watching an entirely different film from the one being screened.

Well it can be a similar experience watching a sub-titled foreign-language film. In this case, my rusty French was nowhere near good enough to catch more than a little of the slang-ridden heavily-accented dialogue, but it was good enough that I spotted a few discrepancies between the dialogue and the sub-titles. I'm in a quandary: what am I actually trying to review here, the original French film or an Anglicisation? Sure, the undemanding plot about a man who pretends to be gay in order to avoid getting fired (because then his employers might appear to be homophobic) works well enough in either language, and indeed in either cultural setting; but I can't help feeling that it works *differently* in the two cultures, or rather that different nationalities of audience would put different emphasis on the various sub-plots and nuances. I'm sure too that there is more than a little "oh it's in French so it must be artistically/stylishly/whimsically worth seeing" (witness the pointless pseudo-porn of Catherine Breillat's 1999 film "Romance" which I probably wouldn't have bothered with if it had been in English - after all I haven't been to see "Intimacy" which covers very similar ground).

Enough caveat; what was it actually like? Light-hearted, superficial, mildly entertaining, unobjectionable, fairly forgettable. Do you like vanilla ice-cream? I'd rather have chocolate, or strawberry. 6/10. Maybe I should get really fluent in French and watch it again. In France.

Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Undemanding, entertaining, laugh-a-minute stuff. Go see!

[5 April 2002]

I love those nature programmes that take you to the depths of the ocean and show you a myriad life-forms that bear little resemblance either to one another or to anything familiar. Apparently the folk at Pixar do too. But a clever computer-graphical interpretation of Mother Nature's sweet little imagination wouldn't make for much of an entertaining time. Fortunately this film also has wit, slapstick, pathos and adventure in just the right proportions. I laughed, I cried, I was amused by the homage to Ray Harryhausen and the nods to Star Wars, James Bond, Mission Impossible, Toy Story, The Wrong Trousers, Reservoir Dogs (yes really!) not to mention the many more that I probably missed by blinking or not paying attention (Fargo, apparently, for example). Overall, a romping hoot from start to finish, not in the least let down by the straightforward see-it-a-mile-off plot. If only humans could act that well. 9/10.

P.S. Why was The Abominable Snowman using a crate of lingonberries (tautologically labelled "Swedish lingonberries") as a seat? A seemingly pointless choice, albeit an amusing one. Is there an influential Swede working at Pixar? Hmmm...

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

A Good Start; let the waiting for parts II and III begin!

[5 April 2002]

"One film to lure them all, one film to woo them, One film to bring them all and in the darkness glue them."

Well, maybe...

I found it pretty well impossible to think about this film without considering the book.

If you've read it recently enough to remember it, then you'll probably find the film an almost entirely satisfactory rendering of Tolkien's flat, detailed, humourless, occasionally superficial narrative prose style (there were a few little muckings-about, cuts and additions but these were mostly harmless). But as with Potty Harry, you might still think (as I did) that a film should be a lot more than merely a cinematographic rendering of a linear sequence of words; then again you might think that suitable homage has been paid to a book that brought the idea of the mythic epic narrative form back into the mainstream (thereby unfortunately spawning an orc-ish horde of poor imitations that didn't bother with Tolkien's attention to sub-structure; remember that The Lord Of The Rings was just skimming the surface of the complete mythology that The Silmarillion revealed more of).

If you haven't read the book but the idea of "a mixed bunch of adventurers who don't really like one another but have An Important Mission to carry out" appeals to you then you'll probably enjoy Our Heroes' struggle against overtly Evil forces and covertly Disruptive influences; you might even find the brief nod to "Back To The Future" amusing rather than cheesy and pointless.

If you haven't read the book and you don't fancy the film, then ask yourself this: did you like Star Wars? Because if George Lucas didn't find inspiration in the likes of Tolkien then I'll eat my light sabre.

Regardless of where you're coming from, it's certainly a visual feast. Spectacular computer animation plus the lovely New Zealand scenery (not been there? Go!) mostly managed not to distract from some fine acting and excellent costumery. (I said *some*; the ubiquitous Cate Blanchett got a bum deal here: looking soulful and sad didn't really capture Galadriel's sense of impending loss of her own power, but perhaps the fault lay more with the dialogue and direction at this point.)

Oh, you want a rating? Sorry, you'll have to wait a couple of years until I've seen all the installments. It's all based on one big book really; practical considerations of time and economy are what have split it into three films.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Don't look now. Don't think now. Trust no-one.

[25 March 2002]

First things first: this is clearly *not* a biopic of John Nash. So what's the story, you ask? Isn't it about the ironic combination of genius and schizophrenia? Well no, not really. Rather, it *uses* that combination to illustrate the real story, which is an allegory about those Great American Topics, conspiracy theory and The Cold War. (As such, it's entitled not to bother mentioning certain politically incorrect aspects of his personality such as his (claimed) anti-Semitism and bisexuality, so I think the critics who have been panning it for misrepresentation are missing the point.)

So, does it paint a convincing picture? Yes, undeniably. We're swept right into Nash's view of the world. Solid performances from Russell Crowe and Ed Harris with reliable occasional support from Paul Bettany and Christopher Plummer help a lot here, and although Jennifer Connelly's cardboard cut-out devoted wife doesn't add any dramatic punch, I think we can blame the scriptwriter for that. The hard maths behind Nash's early burst of genius is skipped right over, alas, but then those Hollywood folks never did care much for science and logic. (Is maths science? I can't answer that and I *am* (or was) a mathematician.)

8/10. But a Best Actor Oscar nomination? Crowe is good here, but not *that* good. Is the competition really that poor?

(P.S. I wrote that just before the Oscars. Well I was right in the end, wasn't I? But I was wrong too, about Connelly. Oh pleeeease. Good looks do not a good performance make. What a travesty.)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

A dysfunctional family, a dysfunctional film

[25 March 2002]

Oops! I did it again. I really must stop listening to the professional critics. They liked "Bandits"; I didn't. They liked this film too; I didn't.

"Every picture tells a story". In that case every film must tell a million stories. Not this one though. There *were* several good stories lurking there somewhere, just begging to be brought out ("neglectful father regrets his children's upbringing and decides late in life to make amends with them and their own children"; "long-suffering mother sees early-flowering offspring apparently fail to live up to early promise but in the end finds that strong family bonds are more important than individual success"; "mutually wary children grow apart but finally find that their common flawed upbringing draws them together again despite disparate lifestyles and attitudes") but the film couldn't make its mind up which one to plump for, so in the end, as with the philosopher's donkey, indecision won the day. Shame. A waste of good talent too: Anjelica Huston and Gene Hackman coasted along as the long-separated parents while Gwyneth Paltrow seemed to have had most of her lines cut; Bill Murray did a fair impression of a neglected sheepdog; at least Ben Stiller tried to inject some energy, but I got the impression that the director kept having to tell him to tone it down as he was making the others look permanently spaced out (ironically, one of the other characters *was* permanently spaced out but didn't share many scenes with Stiller).

To quote from the film itself, "Why did you do this? What was the point?"

4/10, purely because of a generous helping of very funny one-liners.

The Shipping News (2001)

When you're stuck at the bottom, the only way is Up" (North... to Newfoundland, that is)

[25 March 2002]

I went to see this hand-in-hand with two old friends of mine, anticipation and trepidation. The former because I *so* enjoyed the book and I first heard they were making the film *so* long ago (seems like a couple of years) and I *so* wanted it to be as good as the book. The latter because I knew that the director was Lasse Hallström who had made such a mess of "Chocolat", turning a dark bitter Belgian chocolate bar of a book into a sickly sweet box of Quality Street of a film.

In the end I was justified on both counts, though fortunately more on the former. The book is long-ish and highly fragmented (39 chapters) but the film manages to cram in most of the important stuff, although there are points where you can blink and miss crucial developments. Meanwhile Hallström's sweet tooth has indeed been at work once again, but fortunately he started with a setting of such bleak windswept salty unforgiving grimness that he's ended up with something resembling sugar-coated bitter almonds (pardon the mixed metaphor; just be glad I didn't try to work in the seal flipper pie!)

Struggling to straighten out their lives in the face of the weather and the local delicacies are a near-perfect cast including Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore and Pete Postlethwaite (I'll admit I'm biased, I could watch Kevin Spacey all day, if they made a film of my life I'd pick him to play me!); Cate Blanchett makes a good stab at the horribly self-centred Petal in the first (pre-Newfoundland) reel, although the Petal of my imagination is even more petulant and unreliable (think Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction but poorer, more ragged and a lot more uninhibited). Oh, and if you saw him in "Notting Hill", you'll be taken aback by Rhys Ifans' well-honed Home Counties accent here. It certainly makes up for Dench's and Moore's rather wavering attempts at Newfoundlandese.

A word of warning, though. This film is not for the squeamish: if you don't care much for near-drownings, beheadings or lingering close-ups of fish being gutted, go and see a nice war film instead (funny how they never show human guts, isn't it?)

7.5/10. Could have done with more imagery using E. Annie Proulx's ever-present knot metaphor ("strands of life", as it were).

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

Faithful to the book, but a movie needs to be a lot more than that!

[13 December 2001]

A.K.A "Harrison Potter and The Philosopher's Chocolate Easter Egg".

You know those big Easter Eggs that come in a splendid box and look magic but are full of almost nothing, or at least contents that disappoint after the big build-up? Well that's what this film was like, a huge triumph of style and presentation over content. Yes, the sets were great, the set pieces wonderful (the Quidditch match was everything I had hoped for), the costumes cheesily perfect, but the direction was lousy and the acting was hammy with excruciating accents (adults) or wooden (children) with the exception of Emma Watson as Hermione who is my current pick for Star In The Making. The soundtrack was deafening sometimes too. And am I the only person who feels a little uncomfortable hearing an 11-year-old say "Bloody hell"? (Was that in the book?) Still, despite all that, it was mildly entertaining, even if it did seem like Star Wars meets Indiana Jones from time to time. It was also (mostly) gratifying faithful to the book.

7/10. I just hope the sequel(s) is/are better acted.

The Others (2001)

Clever, chilling, provocative.

[13 December 2001]

Oooooh, scary movie? Well, not in the vein of, say, "Carrie" or "Halloween". (Scary gore-fests are a bit passé, aren't they?) No, this is an intelligent ghost story. The premise is not an original idea, but it's extremely well presented. Nicole Kidman turns in another effortless excellent performance without outshining her fellow actors, so we also get the full benefit of the fine contributions from unknowns (at least to me) Fionnula Flanagan as the housekeeper and Alakina Mann and James Bentley as Kidman's character's children. After seeing the faithful -but-tedious "Potty Harry", it's very refreshing to see child actors doing their job really convincingly and movingly. Meanwhile Eric Sykes as the gardener brings just the right combination of gravitas and "Ho ho, I know what's going on and you don't".

The direction is mostly subtly effective, and very occasionally not-so-subtly effective, in particular during the "Oh so *that's* what's going on" pharyngoedema[1]-inducing scene near the end.

Most of the time this film rolls along nicely at 8/10, but it briefly hits 10/10 with the afore-mentioned revelatory scene so I'm prepared to overlook the utter implausiblity of the premise and give it 8.5/10. Not an absolute must-see but definitely a pleasure to have watched it.

[1]: a made-up term meaning approximately "lump-in-the-throat"

Bandits (2001)

I'd rather have Banned-It

[13 December 2001]

Yawn, why does Hollywood carry on churning out half-baked rubbish like this film? Was it made during the scriptwriters' strike? First it looked as though it wanted to be "Fargo", then it made several stumbling steps in the direction of "Pulp Fiction", then it decided to be yet another "two buddies almost get torn apart by the woman who can't decide between them" film, all the while pretending to be "just another heist movie". Rubbing the salt of pointless homage into the wound of unoriginality, it even borrowed from Cameron Diaz' karaoke scene in "My Best Friend's Wedding", except played for pathos rather than laughs, which didn't work. Add the gaping holes in the plot and the whole thing seemed like a montage badly held together with sticking plaster.

The actors didn't help much either. Bruce Willis was... well, the same old Bruce Willis really. The man can't act, could never act, probably will never act. He just stands around looking... solid. Cate Blanchett can act (and how!) when she wants to, but her mind was clearly on other things here ("Lord Of The Rings", perhaps?) Billy Bob Thornton tried to make the most of poor material, but his hypersuggestive hypochondriac was no more sympathetic than Willis' Tao-devouring tough guy or Blanchett's not-actually-manic-depressive housewife trapped in a pointless marriage to a rich but workaholic businessman (which a younger Goldie Hawn could have made so much more of, and probably has).

It smacks of heavy-handed self-mocking that lines from the film included (roughly) "expect the unexpected" and "just how long can these two continue to evade the police?". Sadly this kind of self-knowing point-making made absolutely no dent in the complacency of its time-wasting.

Incidentally I was deeply unimpressed by the original trailer and I only went to see it because critics were saying nice things about it. There's a lesson there somewhere.

3/10. About as bad as "High Heels and Low Lifes" and "The Parole Officer". Don't bother, even when it hits the small screen.