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The Truman Show (1998)
Screwball comedy about how reality is manufactured
The Truman Show may be more interesting for the questions he encourages us to ask than for its own story, which is seriously contrived.
Truman (Jim Carrey) is the unwitting star of a reality television show, one that is watched globally. Everyone knows Truman, everyone sees Truman, and Truman sees only what has been prepared for him by the show's creator, Christof (Ed Harris, excellent as always). The Truman Show takes place in a specially manufactured seaside community, and the whole town complex and coastal region is inside a massive purpose built dome. Christof sits in an office hundreds of storeys off the ground, the God of his own world creation.
Things start to go awry when Truman begins to notice glitches in this very material matrix that surrounds him. He starts to feel that something is off, in the behaviour of his partner, Meryl (Laura Linney), in the behaviour of passersby. Is everyone reading from a script? How can that be? What does it mean?
We get flashbacks to Truman's long lost love, Lauren (Natasha McElhone) who tried to tell him the truth before being bundled into a jeep by her 'dad' and driven away to start a new life in Fiji. Truman painstakingly tries to build a likeness of Lauren's face from magazine photos, and all the while Lauren (real name Sylvia) is outside the complex watching The Truman Show, lucklessly campaigning for Truman's release. Christof insists that Truman loves his prison and wouldn't leave even if he could. That hypothesis may be about to be tested.
Jim Carrey is toning down his usually hyper-performing style to play Truman, but his manic energy and gurning is still in evidence, and him being a clown by nature, The Truman Show manages to keep its overall tone light and buoyant. This isn't a movie like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, or The Matrix, or 1984. Truman's world is one of constant, sunny, syrupy cheerfulness, manufactured bonheur. It's like the world of Fred Rogers, but not for early learners, instead for a childlike insurance salesman. The movie is dominated by Carrey and Harris, good support from Linney and Noah Emmerich playing Truman's six-pack best friend. A blend of Classical music that is both real (Chopin) unreal (Philip Glass) dominates the soundtrack, and there's even a bit of Polish composer Kilar late on (he of Bram Stoker's Dracula fame).
It's a curious business watching this movie in the hyperconnected and casually intrusive world of the 21st century, and even to watch it filtered through the medium of Youtubers' reaction videos, they being equivalent, in a sense, to both Truman's audience and Truman himself, for they put themselves on screen as entertainment for other spectators. Curiously, many of them question the ethics of what is being done to Truman, but they never question the ethics of their own attempt to profit from the hard work of people like director Peter Weir, Andrew Niccol, or anyone else involved in the production of the movie. And today we live in a world where surveillance is conducted casually, in some instances constantly, both by the state and by the citizenry, in pursuit often of approbation and attention within the virtual maelstrom that is the internet. People are prepared to try and make capital to monetise, anything and anybody, at any moment, and without scruple. I wouldn't be surprised if Truman opted, much like Cipher in The Matrix, to go back under the hood, assuming that he actually leaves the show in this movie, which I'm not saying he does (no spoiler).
Des hommes et des dieux (2010)
Quietly devastating and profoundly spiritual
I won't say that this film will change your life. Such a line, a cliché, invites disappointment. I will instead say that it may make you want to change your life.
Co-written by the director, Xavier Beauvois, and based upon real life events, the story of a small band of monks in Algeria who resist the urge to flee to safety when civil war comes calling, each man wrestling with his fears, passing through a dark night of the soul. The cast is led by Lambert Wilson, unrecognisable as the same actor who played the foppish Merovingian in Matrix Reloaded, and Michael Lonsdale (Moonraker, The Name of the Rose, Munich), and there are a couple of faces recognisable from other things (e.g. Engrenages). The movie's musical interludes come in the form of monastic chanting and singing by the monks themselves.
The monks live in harmony alongside the impoverished villagers. Life is peaceful except for all those little differences and details. What does it mean to be in love asks one young woman of Brother Luc (Lonsdale). Then, suddenly, violence bursts in upon the villagers' routines, and soon the politicians are telling the monks they should depart and return to France, since they refuse the army's protection. Brother Christian (Wilson) must lead them but as first among equals, amongst brothers. Should they stay, or go, and if go then where? The war comes to their door and it is the - what are they, insurgents, rebells? - fundamentalists who prove to be the more reasonable and less scary men of blood. The army, when they come calling, exude contempt, even towards the villagers.
MONK: We are like birds on the branch. Perhaps we will not go.
VILLAGER: No you are the branch, we the birds. If you go we lose our footing.
Of Gods and Men (2010) manages to dramatise spiritual struggle and personal courage without bombast and without boredom, but needless to say a film about monks in North Africa won't be for everyone. It's fascinating to watch how Christian is able to appeal to both those brothers who are doubting and afraid and also to the armed men who are themselves brothers likewise, according to their own book. Perhaps it is politics that ruins all?
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)
A Tv series that has that heavy quiet that commands
If you know Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979, from now on TTSS) then you recognise the review title as a partial quotation from the show. Bill Haydon's description to a Circus talent spotter, quoted by Smiley to the man being described, Jim Prideaux. Prideaux is played by Ian Bannen with exactly that heavy quiet, a patience and toughness, but one that does not preclude deeply felt emotion. Indeed, the final shot of Prideaux, sitting at a Sunday school assembly, shows a man silently wracked by grief.
Haydon, Jim's oldest friend, is played by Ian Richardson, who went on to be a superbly villainous prime minister in the original British version of House of Cards. Smiley, of course, is brought to life by Alec Guinness, and with such assurance, such subtlety, and boy will you grasp, or begin to grasp, just how subtle and effective his performance is after you witness the utter hollowness, the blankness of Gary Oldman's performance in the 2011 movie adaptation. Heavens but was that movie dull, made by people who clearly had no faith in the project whatsoever.
One can only return to the exemplary 1979 TTSS with gratitude after enduring however many minutes of 2011's version one can stand. The movie is one of the best recent examples of an overrated movie, critics fawning over a two hour snorefest, one that fails on all fronts: script, direction, casting, editing. Even the music is boring (sorry Alberto).
TTSS, a novel of the 1970s, a TV series made in the period of its setting, the 1970s, the Cold War, proceeds with patience and methodical alertness, just like its protagonists. London Circus, Moscow Centre, and everyone caught between them. Above all, it surpasses its risible movie remake by conveying the seriousness of the game being played by both sides. When Control briefs Jim about his secret mission, and when Lacon and Smiley and Guillam are told about the mole in British Intelligence by Ricky; heavens, when Ricky is told about it by Irina, the dramatic weight is there. Such is sadly, totally absent in the lightweight, insubstantiality of the movie. TTSS 2011 is an entertainment you can safely ignore. TTSS 1979 is an entertainment that won't let you go.
That being all true, one must be honest. TTSS 1979 is patient, methodical, but also a wee bit boring, boring for lack of action and incident. It's a million miles from James Bond or, say, TV series The Americans, being instead an espionage drama focussing on what really happens in the main, intelligence gathering. Information. So it's all interviews and document reading. Even when they nab the mole it's a bit lacking in theatricality. But then again, the final sighting of the mole, let's call it that, has all that dramatic seriousness I mentioned before. By contrast 2011's scene makes a feeble attempt at sentimentality.
So, there you have it. A TV series from a time when the best did not lack all conviction.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Cripplingly dull movie adaptation of the John le Carré novel
If ever you thought that the BBC's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) was too slow, too lacking in action, just wait till your eyes see this two hour snorefest. Your eyelids will most likely take pity on you. Don't be fooled by the starry British cast. Not only are they all out of their depth, they're pretty much all playing the wrong parts. The movie is covered in a sort of grey haze, and the music by the usually excellent Alberto Iglesias, a sedative.
My notes on Tinker Tailor (TTSS), before the movie put me to sleep:
The secret meeting with Control is perfunctory, but this is a movie and time is pressing. The incident with Jim is now in Budapest, not Czechoslovakia, and it seems odd that he isn't grabbed sooner, given that everyone wanted to nab him is already on site. How exactly is the young mother accidentally shot when she's nowhere near Jim? The Jim of 1979 was tough and ruthless, resourceful, even if his adventure behind the Curtain was a bit boring. This version of Jim is just a man sipping coffee.
Control seems rather too relaxed upon leaving office. Smiley looks like he's about to be caught short. There hasn't been much effort to really establish the world we're entering, and the first thing we see are people leaving it. The open plan office feels a bit anachronistic.
A Swedish director, so maybe Working Title was attempting to riff on the popularity of Nordic Noir? Headache Grey seems to be the pallor of this portrait of London Secret Service life. No kind word for the doorman as Smiley and Control shuffle out of office? A bit mean. Control insists, "Smiley is leaving with me", then leaves him alone on the street? At this point I'm flashing back to Eddie Izzard's jokes about British films being full of awkward pauses and hesitancies ("Oh...I'm...Oh.... What?... Well, I'm...Er, er ohhh!"). It feels very tedious as the credits roll, vaguely reminiscent of the soporific start to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (also 2011).
Toby Jones as Alleline? That little squirt? Some replacement for the towering, pompous fellow in 1979's version. When Lacon briefs Smiley about Ricky's information, it's like they don't seem to register the import of what they're saying. A mole, right at the top of the Circus, someone who has been in office for a long time. Lacon, who was a boss in '79, now looks like a mere functionary. Oldman's Smiley remains silent, but not impressively silent, more like that priest in Father Ted who never said anything.
Roger LLoyd Pack, as Mendel? Trigger as a Special Branch copper? There are some very clunky cutaways in this film. Smiley's doorbell rings, cut to Smiley already in a car. Smiley And Guillam approach Mendel from behind without him hearing, cut straight to all three in the car. No meeting in either instance. We see Mendel beekeeping, in a bleak midwinter by the looks of things. Is that normal? The little hotel near Liverpool Street reminds one of Mission Impossible, a much more cartoonish but infinitely more entertaining film than TTSS is proving to be.
Gary Oldman is a celebrated actor, but every performer has their limit. Hate to say it, but he is out of his depth in this one, utterly unable to imbue Smiley with any kind of interest, any subtlety. He's just like the rest of them, grey men in grey coats. Mark Strong is wasted as Jim (he's always wasted in movies). John Hurt doesn't have the presence, looks too slight, to be the boss, Control. Good old Colin Firth tries to evoke something of Ian Richardson's sly wit, playing the role of Bill Haydon, but just comes across as stuffy and superior. Ciaran Hinds as the soldier, Roy? All good actors, all in the wrong parts. And what about that silly mop of hair on Benedict Cumerbund's head? Guillam is supposed to be tough, the superior to field agents. He looks like a fop.
The idea of having photos of the suspects taped onto chess pieces is unbelievably naff.
When Guillam addresses Smiley as "George", not Mr Smiley, there's a pause, into which I found myself compelled to say aloud, "Don't do that". Readers of a certain age will get the reference.
This is a movie about a loss of faith, maybe one that simply comes with ageing, with the passing of the years. But the adaptation has no faith in its source material, or the audience's ability to engage with such a story. Two hours, instead of six for the vintage BBC? It's like when the celebrated 1995 tv version of Pride and Prejudice was followed by that risible movie starring Keira Knightley, or when the Lady Chatterley's Lover adaptation (1993, four episodes, 200 mins) was succeeded by short winded TV movies (BBC, Netlfix). Nobody has the vision or patience to do these things right anymore.
I'm sorry but I cannot get interested, cannot take this clumsily edited, determinedly drab rendering of TTSS seriously. The fact that it got good press smacks of desperation.
Höstsonaten (1978)
"I'll keep trying, even if it is too late. It mustn't be too late."
Autumn Sonata (1978) is a family tragedy. Aren't all tragedies family tragedies? It's a film about people who cannot die, and must go on living, or unliving, with the the bitter fruits of their bad choices. It's a (relatively) quietly shattering film, and unquestionably a great one. That critics could regard it with a matter of fact response back in 1978 tells us a lot about how blessed cinema was back then.
Watching it again, I was surprised, and pleased to find, that the character of husband is not completely sidelined in the movie. In my memory there was only his brief introductory statement to the audience, after which the conflict between mother and daughter/s began. The centrepiece of the movie is, of course, the almighty agon that takes place one sleepless night, as the mother and daughter have a long withheld confrontation, and the daughter, who seems otherwise very quiet and mousey, puts forth all her resentment. The scene is an emotional tour de force. Give Liv Ullmann credit for being able to laugh about the fact that Ingrid Bergman got the Oscar nod, whereas she (Ullmann) had so much dialogue to learn, such a rich cascade of emotion to pour forth.
That said, Bergman's performance, although restrained, is remarkably subtle. All the mother's emotional life comes through her music, so it is right that she is restrained during their confrontation. Bergman famosuly hated this and wanted to make a scene, but her director put his foot down, hard, and the Hollywood diva, who didn't know she was a diva, learned her place. I wonder what feminists make of Autumn Sonata? It is a film about women, mothers, daughters, sisters, with the men sidelined. But it does not present a conveniently happy story of the career-minded woman juggling all the balls without difficulty or sad outcome. Bergman's character, Charlotte, has chosen art over life, and in so doing chosen herself over her children, her husband. Now she has come home, a home, not her home, and there is a reckoning.
Credit also to Lena Nyman as Helena, the sister with cerebral palsy, and the husband of daughter Eva, Halvar Bjork, and there's a sweet little cameo by Bergman regular, Gunnar Bjornstrand. But this movie is a duet between Bergman (Ingrid) and Ullmann, or maybe it's a trio, let's have director Bergman (Ingmar) in there too. The epilogue has immense power, the power of tragedy to both purge our emotions and give us hope of redemption.
A deeply enriching, powerful, dramatic and subtle (remarkably so, compared to today's garbage) masterpiece. Watch this if you ever had a mother.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
The coolest thing about it is the soundtrack
You really have to be a fifteen-year-old boy to get the most out of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). I certainly did, back in the day. I had the movie, the OST, I even had the screenplay. Coming back to the movie today, oh boy, what a caper.
It gets off to a great start. The opening scene at the little store, with the clerk and the police officer shootin' the s*** over a brewskie, that's great, especially with the sudden surprise that comes when the sheriff heads to the head. Clooney and Tarantino play Seth and Richie, bank robbers on the run, making a dash for Mexico. They take a family of three hostage in an RV and set their destination to a seedy biker bar called The Titty Twister. Once they get there, well, things really kick off.
As a teenager, I never thought that Clooney was 100% plausible as an action hero, warrior, badass. Back then even Matt Le Blanc had a bash at being the brawn in some kind of Sci-Fi adventure movie. Clooney remains, for me, a sort of second-rate Cary Grant, but any comparison to Grant demands some measure of esteem. Remember Cary famously told a fan that he also wished he was Cary Grant (the starry image being, of course, an invention of the silver screen). Clooney is in an awkward zone, too clever for soppy rom-coms, but also too intelligent and not quite heroic enough to be Action Man. The less said about his catastrophic stint as Batman the better.
Tarantino, who wrote the screenplay, was still kidding himself that he could act back in the 90s. He can, a bit, but not well enough to be a leading actor. Harvey Keitel, now, he can act. There is also the strong presence of the guy from Shaft, and Tom Savini, legendary special effects maestro, in an acting role (playing Sex Machine). Cheech Marin makes a wonderful cameo in this movie. Or was it three cameos?
And what about Salma Hayek, the living embodiment of Latina sex appeal. Her snake-clad dance will live in your memory forever. This is why the movie is ideal for teenagers. It's the definitive guys' movie. A road movie of sorts; a horror-comedy, buoyed up by a way-out-west, rock'n'roll soundtrack; tequila and whisky, gasoline and smokes, revolvers and roundhouses. The dialogue is pretty cool, and the story doesn't drag (QT isn't directing).
But it sure does become silly and cartoonish once the vampires show-up. That's no spoiler, the movie description mentions vampires. The attempt to combine crime-road-movie, like Bonnie & Clyde or Thelma & Louise, with a vampire/haunted-house caper, is a fresh if flawed idea. And this movie is pretty cool, at least 50% of it. It's just not quite sure if it is a comedy or a horror or a drama or anything else. And the ending is a bit flat.
I'm way past the age when I thought this movie was awesome. But even as a teen I had my doubts. I can't imagine what today's earnest youngsters would make of it.
Frasier (2023)
Wish I'd watched that trailer before buying the complete season box
I'll give it 5* because, well, maybe it improves beyond that the excruciating first ninety seconds. That was about all that I could take. But now, watching the trailer on IMDB, as another reviewer said, it might make you smile but probably won't make you laugh.
False, forlorn hope. We can't get the past into the present, except for how it has survived into the present. The original Frasier, a sitcom that surpassed its parent show, Cheers, remains the finest sitcom if its era. Maybe the best sitcom US sitcom of them all, especially in its first five seasons. I still adore the original Frasier. But the sad fact is that revivals of old sitcoms have happened before, and with poor effect. I guess we're seeing something similar with all these movie franchises being flogged to death in recent years (Star Wars, MCU, Indiana Jones, etc).
Frasier Rebooted opens in what is a very old-fashioned format, the studio-bound setting, too much colour and far too strong lighting. On he comes, looking very tan and there's a round of applause. That also feels very old-fashioned. It's the old mold, but a very senior-looking Kelsey Grammer trying to fill it. Then, a squeak! It's Nicholas Lyndhurst, looking very tweedy and sounding very mousey. Two titans of sitcom history, together, at last! If only the result was inspiring.
I don't think I've seen anything of Lyndhurst since David Copperfield (1999), 25 years ago! That stars a pre-fame Daniel Radcliffe, by the way. Where has he been? What's happened to his voice? Lyndhurst is a legend of British sitcom, from the 1970s-90s, but it's been a long time since Butterflies, since 'Horses, or The Two of Us, or Goodnight Sweetheart. Come to think of it, it's been a heck of a long time since Frasier said "Goodnight, Seattle".
References to Frasier's dad are shoehorned in, and then Frasier's nephew is brought on, to zero comic effect, some lame joke about mixing espressos and anxiety medication, and that's when my cringeometer burst and I had to bale out for my own mental wellbeing. So, the DVDs sit there, waiting for me to psych myself up and try again. But that trailer doesn't give me a shot in the arm of confidence. Nor do the reviews on site, which are hopeful for the pilot, but sinking to 5s and 4s by the end of the run.
Have you seen that Frasier prank trailer, from 2022, which has the old cast but made to look like they're part of a murky revenge thriller; machine guns, knives, threats, a conspiracy, retribution? Now, if they'd done something wild like that, or just changed the visual style to make it more contemporary, then this Frasier reboot could have been a brilliant rebirth for the characters. But instead they've gone the old way, witha conventional sound stage, canned laughter and a flat new rendition of the old theme song. What a missed opportunity.
You can see that spoof trailer on the 'MP Misc' channel on YT.
Deadpool (2016)
You need to be no more than fifteen years old for this movie
It only takes a few minutes of Deadpool (2016) before an adult will be rolling their eyes and screaming, inside their mind, "Get me out of here!".
This is one of those supposedly meta movies, the ones where the makers are so pathetically desperate to show how formulaic the genre is, and how aware they are of said formulae, that the movie starts to drown in its own winking asides, self-referential smugness, and determinedly vulgar humour. I had some hope because of the lovely Morena Baccarin being in it, but really, this is a movie made by, and possibly for, losers.
It's in the nature of things. Stuff, good ideas, they ripen, they flourish, and then they rot. This is the rot. Too many bad jokes repeating on you, second or third rank actors such as Reynolds (too boyish to be manly), Baccarin (too cute to be beautiful), whoever that wrestler chick is (another hulk playing at being a player), and the guy who was Dario in Game of Thrones but who got replaced by someone much more handsome and likeable.
I'm with Mick LaSalle on this one (quoted from Wiki): 'bad, borderline garbage, but disturbing, too, in that it's just the kind of fake-clever awfulness that might be cinema's future'. Fake-clever is indeed the correct designation. This is like, say, the Scary Movie franchise making fun of horror movie cliches. That at least is all out comedy, but Deadpool wants to be both a superhero movie and at the same time to spoof the superhero movie. It wants to have its cake and eat it. In that regard, it's a bit like Friends With Benefits, a romantic-comedy made by people too cool and clever (or so they imagine) to make/be-in a romantic comedy.
And as we know, the MCU has continued to sink into the pool since 2016. Movies and tv franchises made by people who secretly despise the source material. Maybe the C now stands for crap?
Rear Window (1954)
Keep watching and don't fall asleep, Jeff.
One of the scintillating Jimmy Stewart / Alfred Hitchcock movies, probably the most frightening, although also pretty funny in the early phase of the movie.
L. B. "Jeff" Jeffries. Makes me think of Stewart bellowing "C. K. Dexter HAVEN!" in The Philadelphia Story. Jeff is an intrepid photographer confined to his apartment in the stifling NY summer. The reason? A broken leg. Thankfully it's not too lonely, even if he has no TV. There are a whole host of rear windows to watch. A ballet dancer, some newlyweds, a travelling salesman with a nagging wife, another couple who prefer to sleep on the fire escape and let their little dog go up and down to the garden in a basket on a rope; a composer, a middle-aged spinster, a sculptor, and all their guests.
Jeff has his own company. A visiting nurse, Stella (the eternally brillaint Thelma Ritter) and a remarkably beautiful girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), who glides in every evening and always exquisitely dressed. I'd love to know how they met. Both are looking forward to the day, a week hence, when the cast comes off his leg.
Then, one night, a shriek. But where did it come from?
Little by little Jeff, and then his ladies, become convinced a murder has taken place. Is it the summer heat overcooking their brains or are they onto something grisly? What right do they have to spy on Jeff's neighbours, in any case. (Imagine that question today, in our world of constant snooping, oversharing and surveillance.) Jeff's cop buddy, Doyle (Wendell Corey, always the square-jawed stiff) is sceptical to say the least. All evidence points to Jeff using this murder theory as an excuse to avoid talking any more about giving up his roving lifestyle and marrying Lisa.
I'll tell you, the climax of this movie will have you sick with fear. In a good way, naturally. You know what I mean.
Rear Window, like Hitchcock's Rope, only uses music as part of the environment, with scoring relegated to the credit titles. Like Rope it's all in one location, but played over several days instead of just one. But Rear Window is much more about the how than the reason why, although both feature Jimmy Stewart as a man, alert and intelligent, getting sick with suspicion that something terrible has happened. This movie is the more exciting of the two because there's a greater feeling of risk for the amateur detectives as the story moves forward and they take greater risks in pursuit of evidence.
The only things that work against Rear Window are the fact that once you know you know, the typical problem with a crime caper, but also the hasty tying-off the story at the end. Vertigo also had a slightly iffy ending, and let's not forget that massive expositional dump that comes at the end of Psycho. So, I guess endings were Hitchcock's Achilles Heel. Nobody's perfect. But one thing's sure, the master of suspense sure ain't boring.
Tin Cup (1996)
A breezy comedy about a man's honour, pride and perversity
Kevin Costner is, as IMDB says, the washed-up golfer giving lessons to greenhorns in the back end of nowhere. Into his life comes a therapist of sorts, played by Rene Russo, looking for golf lessons. She's all head and he's all heart. That being the case, simplistic though it sounds, she tells him he should follow his heart and trust himself when making decisions. Then he asks her out. Oops.
She's involved with an old rival of his, a successful golfer, played by Don Johnson. Tin Cup (Costner) evidently ruined his chances, years back, on account of a perverse stubborn streak. When he gets in that mood there's no talking to him. Russo isn't biting so Tin decides to try and qualify for the top tournament, the US Open, to impress her. He knows he's the right man for her, and that Don is only posing as the right man.
Know thyself. The most ancient wisdom. Accepting oneself, that's another matter. Tin actually seems pretty laid back for a washed up golfer, a might-have-been. But hey, whatevs.
This isn't a po-faced sports drama, it's a sports comedy, a sports romantic comedy. It basically ends with something that has become the bane of all out existence, a publicity stunt to secure fame. Cup sure has courage, even if he lacks sense.
A feel-good golf movie. Not an eagle but definitely a birdie.
The Keep (1983)
A film that needs to be rescued from its own excesses and privations
I've known of the existence of The Keep all my life, though I didn't know that it was in Wales. I know, I know. It isn't anywhere, except in the imaginations of the novelist and the director who adapted the novel. Listening to part, part only, of a podcast in which Quentin Tarantino and friend discussed the movie (one can only stand so much of opinionated fanboy QT pontificating), this at last gave me the prod to watch The Keep. The fact that it is a Michael Mann feature (Manhunter, Heat, that one with Tom Cruise) was the selling point.
The Keep, in its original cut, would have exceeded three hours. In its 90+ minutes version, well, it's inadequate to say the least. You can see why the studio wanted to hack it down to under three hours, but what we're left with is simultaneously so abrupt and so slow that it doesn't make much sense. The ancient evil unleashed is too amorphous to be interesting, and I was confused as to who was going to be the hero, Prochnow or Glenn. A big problem is the style. I think Mann, like Ridley Scott, came from advertising. There is a showiness to his framing, his slow-mo, that is too much of the period to convincingly portray 1940s Romania. The Tangerine Dream scoring tends to overlay the action, not underpin it, and when you add sound effects to the music, it's sonic overload. The special effects, such as Glenn's weird eyes, now look rather corny. It's funny to think that a US-directed film set in a European castle such as The Keep, so clumsily edited, so hamfisted and unbelievable, probably has a better rep in North America than a marvellous castle movie such as The Name of the Rose (1986, dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud). Rose was trashed by US critics, probably because Annaud brings the Middle Ages to life, not to a theme park. Mann's The Keep is so comically stagey that it better suits the Yanks' conception of Europe, as a tourist attraction, not a continent with real people living in it.
Boring, at least in its brutally abbreviated theatrical version.
Mi chao (2018)
A videogame for people too lazy to push the buttons
Guardians of the Tomb is a videogame in movie form, something that has become increasingly common in the new millennium. Heavens, I mean, look at John Wick: just a series of levels, lots of minions to double-tap and then a boss at the end, and no matter how often he gets hurt he never dies. Just press START again and we're away!
In this case, Guardians is a scrolling platform puzzle game - it literally is scrolling, by the way, with the spiders constantly following the intrepid explorers - where clues need to be sought and solutions found before we move on to the next level. CGI spiders, loads of them, fake but creepy.
The gang of folks going where sensible, wise, even everyday idiots would flee from, is diverse, but not, I think, fashionably so. What I mean is that they're more like an example of videogame diversity, the sort you get in Street Fighter, or some sort of swords and sorcery exploration game. The most recognisable face is that of Kelsey Grammer, TV's Frasier Crane, and that's why I watched this, one lonely night in a hotel. Stuck it out to the end, so it's not the worst film ever. Makes me nostalgic for Zelda and Mario and Golde Axe, and other games.
Wedding Crashers (2005)
From the stable of Faber & Fisher & Dobkin
Life beyond Apatow World. Life for the gross-out comedy's what I mean. This isn't out and out gross but it is very fluid, of one kind or another. The story's a bit splashy too.
John & Jeremy are divorce lawyers and best friends. They're also amateurs in an usual sport: crashing weddings. They show up to weddings to eat all the nibbles, chug all the booze and score with the hottest wedding guests not wearing white. Their guiding light in the art of crashing is one Chazz Reinhold. Chazz wrote the book, literally, and the J-boys can't stop quoting the rules to one another. They know the discipline, they know the plays, they've got serious game.
Until they meet their match at the last wedding of the season. Cupid's bow rings out and our two horndogs are destined to go down the rocky road of love, with all its mis-steps, buckshot and soreheads. Jeremy learns that women tell tales too, and John that being honest and upfront is often the best way to go.
It's fair to say that Vince Vaughn is not everyone's taste. Nor is Owen Wilson. I like em, especially together (Google movie aside). I definitely can't like Will Ferrel (Chazz) and I'm not too keen on Rachel McAdams. But the rest are all great. Bradley Cooper does a great job playing a jockstrap of a jock a-hole, the ludicrously named Sack Lodge. Walken and Seymour, and the delectable Isla Fisher, and the guy who isn't the boy from Billy Elliot, they're all great. The movie's got some real snappy dialogue in it, especially in the early stages.
The romance between John and Claire is just too wishy washy to be interesting. Woody Allen must have been watching cos he cast McAdams and Owen to play vanilla opposite each other once agin, in Midnight in Paris (2011). I can't understand the nicknames the J-boys have for one another. Tazmanian Devil, for a blonde Owen Wilson? And why Baba Ganoush for a strapping fellow like Vaughn? There's also the issue of the private detective as a plot device. How, given that the J-boys are there under false pretences, with false names and bogus career details, could a private detective so quickly ascertain their real identities AND their history of crashing weddings? They've been using different false names at all the different weddings, and they are the only thing that links them. It's a false note. One might also question the appropriateness of John interrupting the final wedding ceremony in order to plead his case. Kind of bad taste, don't you think.
Oh, and Ferrel does a sadly highly effective job playing a nauseating manchild.
But hey, at least it's not Apatow.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
"You play the market?" "No, the ukelele. I sing too."
Two myths that need to be torpedoed.
First, that this is the greatest comedy movie ever made. Of course it isn't. It's funny. It's entertaining. But let's be honest, there are funnier movies than this one, smarter too.
Second, I read on Wiki, some woman scholar/opinion insists that Marilyn Monroe was not dumb, that's only a myth. Hmmm. Not dumb, eh? Every man asks himself, multiple times in his life, when hearing a woman say something, is she lying, or is she stupid? With Marilyn, given that it allegedly took her more than eighty takes (that's 80 takes!) to say the line, "It's me, Sugar", then the question must be, is she stupid or is she the devil? Tony Curtis said of Monroe that working with her was a trial because, like the monkey in Friends (he didn't say that analogy), by the time she finally got the line right her co-star was so exhausted their performance had gone right down, but it was Marilyn's best take that had to be used.
- Don't worry Marilyn, dear. We'll get there. We're all in this together.
- Worry about what?
The above is something along the lines of what the director is supposed to have said to Marilyn after the so-many dozenth time she'd fluffed her lines, and her immortal, uncomprehending, either mind-bogglingly narcissistic or kicked-in-the-head-by-a-donkey-dumb reply. Monroe was a bit like Lena Lamont in Singing in the Rain, a funny combo of sharp instinct and dull intellect. Laurence Olivier lost his thespian mind over her astounding lateness to set. She set the mold for all wannabe divas in showbusiness.
All of which is preamble towards saying that this is a highly entertaining movie, although not quite the miracle you may expect after reading all the encomia heaped on it.
Chinatown (1974)
"Hold it, Kitty Kat! Hold it!"
Chinatown is one of those famous movie marvels that comes to you trailing so much prestige that it is almost inevitable you'll be disappointed. Often times, after a couple more viewings the greatness of the great movie fully reveals itself. But in the case of Chinatown, I dunno, maybe it's just because the story is so distasteful, becoming more so as the ill doings are revealed, I can't help having some sympathy with critic Vincent Canby's assessment. He said it made him wish he was watching the very movies that inspired this one, i.e. Classic film noir, black and white, with all the deep shadows. Maybe Chinatown is just too challenging for the both of us?
I guess the main thing is the fact that he recreates the 1930s but in colour. Jack Nicholson was establishing himself as a leading actor among A-listers at this time, the kind that wins multiple Oscars. Thing is, his character, Gittes, he ain't cool, not like the kind of gumshoes and street-wise guys played by the likes of Bogart and Mitchum, Cagney or Ladd. The P. I. who decides to stick his nose in, and very nearly loses it (a famous sequence) after a woman asks him to tail a cheating husband, whereupon the surveillance snaps find their way into the tabloids. A much bigger conspiracy is being worked, monstrously lucrative, cruelly damaging to its victims. At the same time, a horrible family rupture, worthy of Greek tragedy, is also being dragged up to the surface, out of the murky depths. All of this to the mournful soliloquies of a sour trumpet on the soundtrack.
I love John Huston's supporting role, and Polanski's smaller but fearfully menacing one. I'm just not that taken with Nicholson's Gittes or his employer, Evelyn Cross-Mulwray (Faye Dunaway, sans eyebrows). The stories of what went on, Dunaway vs Polanski, on the set of Chinatown, are pretty hair-raising stuff.
A great movie, a classic, but that don't mean you have to love it.
The Ugly Truth (2009)
Entertainingly rude, but also rather stupid, rom-com
What's wrong with duck for dinner? Duck is delicious.
Is that true about tap and bottled water being basically the same? I'll take that one on trust.
And why can't we see Mike's congratulatory cake? I bet that box was empty. Boo.
But back to the review...
Abby (Heigl) is nothing if not prepared. She's capable. She's unflappable, at least until Butler's character, Mike, shows up. I don't know about you but, background check and casual heightism aside, I rather like the idea of a date who comes to dinner with a prepared list of conversational topics. Who likes awkward silences?
Abby's TV morning show is dropping in the ratings, so her boss decides to freshen it up by hiring a spicy TV personality, Mike Chadway, to present the Ugly Truth. He's going to be controversial on love and relationships, the battle of the sexes, telling it how it is, in his mind anyway, not how folks pretend it ought to be. Abby is horrified, but the results are in and the numbers don't lie. Abby's lovelife being a trainwreck, in a short time Mike is doling out advice to her too.
Mike's TV routine, first seen on some kind of cable channel (is that right, cable?) is crude to say the least. Very lowbrow. He remorselessly objectifies women, gleefully in fact. And how does he do that so convincingly? I'll tell you. It's because this movie, The Ugly Truth, was screenplayed by three women. Yes. True. Look it up. Roger Ebert was astonished that something so vulgar could come from writers on the distaff side, but I'm not. No-one is better at objectifying women than women themselves. And yup, you guessed it - that's the ugly truth.
But what about this movie as another entry in the rom-com genre?
Mike's right. "The truth is never pretty." Does this movie stick to its truth till the end? It ought to be a bitter end, given the obnoxious date-doctor's philosophy, but, well, things tend to end happy kissy in Romcom Land. And this is a standard issue Hollywood genre picture, with just the kind of locations, lighting, lensing, soft music, bouncy spirit, to make it only barely distinguishable from a host of others. What sets it apart? Heigl and Butler both have good energy, likeability, and Mike's crass, schoolboyish sense of humour, the kind the ladies both disapprove of and giggle/swoon over. Contradiction? In a man's world yes. In a woman's mind, call it multitasking.
In under half an hour Mike has had chicks wrestling in pudding on morning television. Abby then has a dream where she's demoted to being a nude weathergirl, dropping tacky innuendoes. Neither set piece is remotely convincing. Nor for that matter is the cat up the tree scene, also inside the first half hour. Once Mike/Butler starts dishing on his fellow men, then, well, you really know this stuff was written by women. It's testament to Butler's charm and Heigl's that they make this crass piffle funny and entertaining. And I disagree with Ebert about the restaurant underwear scene. I think Heigl's impromptu O-performance is more impressive than Meg Ryan's (from I'll Have What She's Having) for being fake real as opposed to fake fake. Curious to admit, but The Ugly Truth rises in status within the genre on account of its unusual, explicit vulgarity. It's not insipid, which makes a nice change. It's borderline gross, but not gross-out. It's rude-funny without being disgustingly filthy. It may be completely unbelievable that someone so icky would get a morning tv timeslot alongside news anchors, and likewise end up advising a beautiful woman on how to date moment-by-moment, but the payoffs outweigh the absurd setups.
Recommended, I'm ashamed to say.
Going the Distance (2010)
If you run, evacuate, before you start spitting fire, dude!
That's three song titles from the soundtrack, by the way. They are all contributed by a British Indie band, The Boxer Rebellion (who also appear in the movie). Someone must like them. I'd never heard of them.
I know one pro critic rates a comedy on whether or not it makes him laugh six times or better. I can't help wondering if the key question is, say a third or halfway through, do I even care what happens to these people? If you don't care, maybe selecting out is the best option. Another option is to keep it running but on mute, open a tab, and start writing a review.
The opening credits sequence is tacky and commercial, with an annoying song that contains the line, something like, 'I try listening to my head, / Come back with nothing, / Babadababoomboom'. Or gibberish to that effect. Oh well, the trailer made GOING THE DISTANCE look funny, so maybe we should hang on and do just that?
You know you're in trouble when the bit that was funny in the trailer is not funny in the actual movie. It gradually becomes apparent that this is a rom-com constructed out of other, better rom-coms; a rom-com that doesn't arise from real life experience but instead from the trappings and tropes in Romcom Land. A messaging montage is accompanied by Don't Get Me Wrong by The Pretenders, exactly like in Bridget Jones' Diary. Christina Applegate's uptight, bossy sister is an annoying rehash of characters played by Jenna Elfman (Friends With Benefits) and even better, Bonnie Hunt (in Jerry MacGuire, and Return To Me). Hunt and Elfman were charming and sympathetic, Applegate is not.
The tabletop sex scene is funnier in the trailer. The dinner party followup isn't funny at all. We then go to the club to watch the Boxers do their musical thang and that's when I broke off to write this review. A man, a woman, a shared predicament, and some ancilliaries who exist only to comment upon and maybe hijack the relationship with bad advice.
To be fair, there are a few laughs in the movie, and I liked the bit where we saw them talking on the phone and there were sweeping shots of Golden Gate Bridge by day and a NYC bridge by night, but to be honest the scenes of the protagonist (character's called Garrett, the actor's name? Adam Backseat Driver, perhaps?) and his bros talking about sex and girls, well, those buddy scenes were the most entertaining part, or thus far. But as you can see, I've drifted. Not-Adam-Driver couldn't hook my interest, and Drew Barrymore is/was cute but was never much of an actress.
So, this is middling fare. A by-the-numbers rom-com without any star power. It passes the time.
Vertigo (1958)
There's a reason they call it lovesickness
Adapted from a French crime novel by Boileau-Narcejac, Hitchcock's VERTIGO is probably his most disturbing suspense thriller, one that rips a hole in reality and makes everything into a dreamscape of sorts. Or a nightmare. Dreams by day, nightmares after dark. It up-ended the clean wholesome image of actor Jimmy Stewart, quite deliberately, to make the romantic obsession bordering on madness that afflicts his character, John "Scottie" Ferguson, all the more alarming. Opposite him is the greatest of Hitchcock's cool blondes, Kim Novak, the woman Scottie is asked to keep tabs on. Her husband is worried she might be possessed. The truth is more complicated, but still coloured by mystery. The mystery of the human soul.
Just as Psycho (c.1960) is unthinkable without Bernard Hermann's musical scoring, likewise Vertigo is made rapturous, tragic, and enigmatic, intimate and alarming, by the composer's inspirations. The San Francisco setting enables Hitch to achieve some surprisingly beautiful shots, such as the scene with the sequoia trees, or the scene under the Golden Gate Bridge. The great thing about the movie is that its riddle of a story can't quite ever be unpacked, no matter how often you watch it, or how deeply you think it over.
Naturally, if you do think too hard then the desire for rationality, the pragmatist's mindset, will start to unpick the illusion, for it is only a fiction, an illusion. The whole business with the church tower, in fact the whole conspiracy, is pretty darn elaborate when you mull it over. Isn't the courtroom scene unduly harsh, even for the period? Isn't Judy's part in the affair a bit hard to account for? And what about that nun?
But none of that matters when one considers how skilfully Hitchcock reels us in, how patiently, and how enigmatic Novak is, how quietly and then forcefully obsessive Stewart's behaviour becomes. This is a movie that must have been the subject of countless essays by psych majors and film studies minors. Anyone who has read the littlest bit on psychoanalysis is bound to find it fascinating. Anyone interested in love, love as the ancients understood it, as a sickness, not a dose of vitamins, is sure to be captivated. But this is no lightweight movie, not a background movie to ignore while you waste your time texting. You have to allow it to bind you with its spell, much like the Wagner opera Tristan und Isolde, much mentioned as an inspiration for Bernard Hermann's music.
Vertigo briefly topped the famous Sight & Sound poll of Greatest Movies; briefly meaning for ten years. It was knocked off a couple years back by Jeanne Dielmann...(1975). I know, I know. But what you gonna do? It's a mad world right now. Maybe we've all fallen into Carlotta's dream?
Wild (2014)
The best backpacker movie so far?
Adapted by Nick Hornby from the memoir written by PCT trekker Cheryl Strayed, and starring Reese Witherspoon, a breakthrough (not breakout) performance, WILD is for my money the best backpacker genre movie so far. Such a genre does, sorta, exist. One thing's for sure, it's better than Strayed's book - I kept wanting to slap her - and it's better by far than another movie where a long journey is triggered by grief, THE WAY (2010, dir. Emilio Estevez). WILD is a far richer movie than THE WAY, richly textured both visually and in its sound design.
Cheryl's circumstances, the things that triggered her impulsive decision to walk the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) are gradually revealed through a series of flashbacks, flashbacks that are most artfully interwoven into the quiet drama of her lonesome journey into the desert and beyond. The sound design is also very creative, songs that appear in the memory, her memory, and then fade out repeatedly. Witherspoon, better known for playing very Blonde characters, is superb as the intrepid and determined woman, carrying a backpack christened Monster by her fellow trekkers, so insanely big it almost dwarfs her. As she walks the sadness that underlies her decision, the grief, is most tellingly and affecting elicited, again, far more effectively than in the very dull Estevez movie of four years prior. But then again, Cheryl's journey is far more demanding than a lengthy stroll across Spain, sleeping in hostels. Cheryl is out in nature, with coyotes and rattlesnakes and creepy looking hunters. It's a wild journey indeed.
My only criticism is the ending, which is a bit too mind/body/spirit kitschy.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Bowling For Columbine Revisited
Michael Moore explores the cultural environment that shaped the lads who attacked the Columbine High School. What factors were behind or may have been behind their decision, their state of mind, when they armed themselves and went on the rampage?
How times change. Back in 2002 I think everyone was with Moore when he asked if it wasn't a bit dangerous for a bank (the first place he visits in the film) to be handing out rifles to new customers. The common sense position, the "Whaaaat?!" response: we all shared that. Now, I don't know what's happened, but all I see is the artifice of it. Moore and the bank tellers acting as if there's no-one standing there with a big video camera, and the way the film cuts away immediately after Moore's question. Did they have a response? Was it a plausible explanation as to why a bank would hand out weapons to people?
Anyway, it feeds in to Moore's exploration of North America's love affair with guns and ammo. We meet the Michigan Militia, see how people fortify their homes against the boogie man, the folks who really do sleep with a magnum under the pillow, and so on. Moore's tone may seem a little glib, but when the sequence outlining the US's foreign policy, post-WW2, its destructive, malign intervention into so many countries, especially neighbouring countries, is shown to the strains of What A Wonderful World, suddenly one senses the depth of anger and disgust that is motivating this documentary.
Give him credit, Moore's film is anything but po-faced. It's satiric, and we need satire to bite down hard just as it entertains us. This does. Moore seems to be saying that the USA is in the killing business, so is it any wonder high school kids do what the country does best? All around are the instruments of death and mayhem. It's normal, that is the point. School shootings are the norm, not the exception, or they have become (even more) so since the turn of the millennium. Maybe Moore's hypothesis is a bit too broadbrush, too political and not psychological enough? One can't deny the fascination of his film, what it reveals about fearmongering, bloodlust, the role of the media, not forgetting the much benighted NRA, and how utterly unlike the Yanks the equally gun clad (yet peaceable) Canadians are.
The sequence of images and emergency calls from the school illustrate frustration, fear and confusion. Who is keeping us safe if we, so to speak, are our own aggressors? The documentary demonstrates with calm, harrowing clarity, how easy it is to obtain deadly weapons, of all kinds, in ample quantity. Guns and groceries, thank you come again! The contrast between the NRA rally's romanticisation of rights and entitlements vs the bereaved's raw and urgent call for control and reform, is alarming and enlightening. Depressingly comical is the country's overreaction to the shooting, expelling or suspending kids for the most meaningless and inane of infractions. Suddenly the kids are all viewed as potentially "the enemy".
Given what has happened since, one might question the value of such a documentary movie. Given the preponderance of alleged copycats, maybe any kind of publicity for these disaffected lunatics was a bad idea? Bowling maybe tries to do a bit too much, pinballing from one social issue to another, even dropping in a capsule History of America cartoon segment, the one that annoyed the South Park guys. Poverty, deprivation, corporate greed, fearmongering on a national level, racism, political and societal manipulation, hatred of one's neighbour, it all gets flung into the mix, but does a concrete answer to the "Why?" ever emerge? I didn't hear it. Another consequence of 21st century living: loss of concentration.
Definitely worth renting, but not the last word on school shooting. If only it had been.
The Counselor (2013)
Too many actors and not enough story
Wasn't this Cormac McCarthy's first screenplay? Normally he did the novels that became movie screenplays. Trying to skip a stage, alas, too much got lost. This movie is all theme and no substance, and there are too many A-listers for comfort. Inevitably they're going to get in each other's way.
Fassbender is the titular Counselor, a lawyer (curious title for a lawyer, no?) getting involved in drug dealing and about to reap the consequences. His contact is a dealer called Reiner (Javier Bardem, looking perfectly ridiculous), married to the vulgar, seedy blonde Malkina (Cameron Diaz, miscast). There's also Penelope Cruz as the Counselor's fiancee and Brad Pitt as an intermediary. Bruno Ganz has a small part as a diamond merchant, garbled English as always. We also get a couple of leopards sashaying around. If this was meant to bring up memories of Hepburn and Grant in Bringing Up Baby, well, it didn't help to be reminded of that screwball comedy in this drama of sewage, kidnapping, and decapitation.
Actually, what this really made me think of was 2000's far superior Traffic, by Steven Soderbergh. I begin to think Soderbergh is as underrated as Ridley Scott is overrated. Or even The Constant Gardener (2005, dir. Fernando Ferreira Meirelles) because of the grief theme. Those are movies carrying more flare and more depth of feeling. With a film like this, The Counselor, one is on the outside looking in, struggling to cope with Bardem's and Ganz's, and even Pitt's enunication, and unable to find anything to take away from the seedy story other than the message that people are foolish, conniving, and despicable. Even the introductory sex scene, supposedly a scene of happy accord, is full of distasteful ego.
A dismal outing. Rent TRAFFIC instead.
Bez konca (1985)
There's more to Kieslowski than the Colours trilogy
Written by Kieslowski and Piesiewicz, NO END stars the beautiful and beguiling Grazyna Szapolowska as the widow of a lawyer who suddenly died of a heart attack. Her late husband, Antek (Jerzy Radziwilowicz) was in the middle of defending a man arrested for his part in a strike at a factory. His widow, Ursula, suggests that the arrested man be represented by Antek's teacher, an old lawyer named Labrador (Aleksander Bardini), and becomes peripherally involved in the case as she works through her grief. Antek's ghost makes his presence felt in surprising ways.
No End has been compared to the later French movie BLEU, starring Juliette Binoche, but it's a much more sober offering, more enigmatic. One has a feeling of lives interrupted, like being stuck in an elevator, fearful that the cable could break or the doors open upon something horrible. Not that the film is scary or suspenseful, but simply that the characters, people generally, are at the mercy of forces they cannot understand, beyond their control.
Fans of the Colours Trilogy and of the Double Life of Veronique will probably enjoy this. It has all Kieslowski's magic, his special way with light and shadow.
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
The Brief Encounter of the Horror-Romance Genre
Brief Encounter is a celebrated British melodrama of the 1940s, as likely to provoke gales of mirth as floods of tears in any audience. Something similar can be said of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula movie. Once seen, never forgotten.
Gary Oldman, a hot property in the 1990s, plays Dracula, Anthony Hopkins is his nemesis, Dr Van Helsing, Winona Ryder is Mina Harker, Keanu Reeves plays Jonathan and Sadie Frost Lucy, Mina's friend, and Dracula's victim. There's also Carey Whatsit as Lucy's husband-to-be, Lord Holmwood.
Coppola's film successfully deploys, but doesn't rely upon, the epistolary style used by Bram Stoker in the novel. Oldman is simply breathtaking as the Count, completely bypassing the Christopher Lee formula and making the immortal character his own. It is a singular portrayal. It is one of the two best things about this movie.
What is the other best thing? The simply exquisite musical scoring by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar. The music for Dracula's loves, Elisabeta in the Middle Ages, and Mina in the 19th century, with its sacramental character, particularly at the beginning and end of the movie, is heartstoppingly beautiful. Other portions are perfectly portentous and sinister, as required. Just as Hitchcock's Psycho and Vertigo are unthinkable without their musical scores, Coppola's Dracula is married to Kilar's music. That Annie Lennox drivel over the closing credits is nothing.
Thing is, the movie is completely, hilariously OTT. Coppola flings so many hysterical details, overloads scenes with such supernatural weirdness, and of course Tony Hopkins, let off the leash, spoils many a scene by overplaying his part, chewing up the scenery, so that the movie is less Bram Stoker and more Andrew Lloyd Webber, and to its detriment. There are also postmodern touches that can only leave viewers bewildered. Oldman's costumes for the London scenes, those weird sunglasses he wears, they make him look like a 1970s John Lennon rather than a Transylvanian ghoul. Reeves has been much maligned for his wooden performance, his dodgy British voice. Personally I prefer his low key performance to Hopkins' excesses.
But for all that the movie is in very bad taste it is nevertheless a sensational movie, hugely entertaining, even if its materials don't really gel together properly. One can enjoy the bad for its badness and the good for its goodness, such is the spectator's detachment. It's like drinking a punch drink, yucky but it gets you tipsy. Dracula is a very potent brew indeed.
Moonraker (1979)
Nothing if not fun. Two hours of fun.
With another superb song for Shirley Bassey and blessed with some of John Barry's most ethereal music, not to mention the unforgettable drawl of villain Michael Lansdowne (playing Drax), Moonraker sounds great. It also looks great, bouncing between such locations as California, Venice, Rio, and outer space, and an abundance of beautiful people, many of them in outer space, funnily enough. Roger Moore is at his suave best, and the reappearance of Jaws as his looming adversary is played more for laughs than menace. Bond's leap from the plane, sans parachute, was the first instance of someone doing that in a movie, long before Keanu in Point Break, or Tom Cruise doing his thing MI Fallout.
But the story, and how it is shaped? The dialogue? Well, it is, unavoidably, inescapably silly. So silly. When the principal aim is fun, however, something sadly missing from too many 21st century movies, then such silliness can be easily forgiven. Moonraker, like all the Moore Bong capers, is fun, great fun, delightful, cartoonish fun.
For pleasure seekers.
Ninotchka (1939)
Comrades, we're going to have fewer but better Russians.
Ninotchka just gets funnier and funnier the more often you watch it. Three twerps are sent by the Soviet to auction off a duchess' jewels and use the funds to buy tractors. The old boy network soon brings news of their arrival in Paris to the duchess' beau and he puts a spanner in the works, or rather puts Paris in the works, and the clowns forget their mission. Cue Ninotchka! Garbo herself. Talking. Laughing. Mostly looking very stern. She also meets the duchess' smooth talking gallant and an entertaining clash of cultures ensues, spiced up with double entendres that really raise the temperature. "Would you like to see my wound?" "I'd love to."
One of the best in Barry Norman's selection of 100 Great Movies of the Century. It's so charming, so suave, and so endearing. Opposites attract romance at its most beguiling.