tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-206615262024-03-07T07:29:50.203+00:00Movies Can't Last.Those beautiful phony trances.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-31676313804801863402007-01-19T22:39:00.000+00:002007-01-19T22:45:22.512+00:00Slant Magazine's Films of the Year.<a href="http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/features/2006yearinfilm.asp">Just what I put above.</a> A nice selection, try sifting through the occasional pretense.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-62071681148428856582007-01-06T00:14:00.000+00:002007-01-06T12:32:46.967+00:00Review: Superman II - The Richard Donner Cut<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TXTOYQ99Ufw1K-4FQJ3bfBst9bJBj5uaE2ZWmhOHvtSYAUc_UaqUJRgutlW9cGD7lvtjpQm4S1A1DY4xCdzVk9WG63fCV9OsOLRkOJPPyM5eUdCyCfjmydM8AmxiQ13F5Q2l/s1600-h/richarddonnercut.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TXTOYQ99Ufw1K-4FQJ3bfBst9bJBj5uaE2ZWmhOHvtSYAUc_UaqUJRgutlW9cGD7lvtjpQm4S1A1DY4xCdzVk9WG63fCV9OsOLRkOJPPyM5eUdCyCfjmydM8AmxiQ13F5Q2l/s320/richarddonnercut.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5016704952895909634" border="0" /></a>In the absence of vermislitude, camp frippery prevails. So learnt Dick Donner, as Hollywood lore has it, when he was notoriously fired from completing a quarter of the sequel to <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman: The Movie </span>for no other reason (ostensibly) than personal distaste and Svengali tendencies. There has been far too much ballyhoo, contempt and indifference met with the release of this fractured mini-masterpiece, and I won't bore you with the intricacies of that Salkind mentality. For once, <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II </span>doesn't anticipate a Richard Pryor comedy. And it means a lot more than sniggering at awkward CG updates, useless NY inserts, and a plot device so painfully re-transfigured that even the most ardent fans don't seem willing to turn a blind eye at the sake of artistic retribution.<br /><br />Donner's vision, here shown for the first time 'as originally conceived and intended', is a hotpotch of wanton fanboy acquiescence and extemporising humanity. It's more meaningful than the version you saw in 1980; and you'll have to forgive Margot Kidder in a towel for forgetting to dye her hair. Much has been made of Richard Lester's unwelcome slapstick in his version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II</span>, and one can't help but exhale comfortably in the knowledge that the Man of Steel no longer tosses cellophane badges at his foes, Metropolis civilians don't keep using the phone whilst being blown down the street, and someone's not afraid of telling Terence Stamp that bellowing "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!" as surrealistic Vaudeville as often as possible isn't wisest of the choices.<br /><br />Unfortunately, taken alone, this remains an impoverished curio, a malnourished footnote on the cutting room floor. Something <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman Returns </span>fails to recognise aside from the fact it's too expensive, is that character isn't a boorish collection of snippets of momentary reconciliation. The 2006 version is a screenwriter's dream - there are three painfully defined acts, and Superman's 'dramatic journey' is perfunctory as pie. Whereas Donner's films understand mythos, but mythos in the context of reality. Superman spends the night with Lois because Superman <span style="font-style: italic;">wants</span> to spend the night with Lois, not because the world was less complicated in 1978 or our hero had no tangible qest to embark upon. Compare a similar altercation in Singer's blockbuster in which Superman meets Lois on the roof of the <span><span>Daily Planet</span></span>: the interminable Kate Bosworth excepted, it is so entrenched in creating a chemistry between the two leads whilst affixing some timely relevance (Lois <span style="font-weight: bold;">doesn't </span>smoke, the world <span style="font-weight: bold;">doesn't </span>need Superman) it misses the point entirely. There is always a point, always avail, never character and, crucially, no jubilance.<br /><br />Dick Donner understood how to have fun without juggling panda bears - that's why he opened <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman </span>with a kid opening a comic book instead of staving in Christian allegories we're already aware of. That's why he has Lois Lane 'out' Clark Kent by shooting him instead of having his child. And that is why Donner's version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II </span>eclipses both Singer's and Lester's, even over the stilted pacing, glib conclusion, and weak villainy. Or it may just be that Lois Lane in a towel makes me all gooey.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1166728935157337312006-12-21T19:22:00.000+00:002006-12-21T19:25:05.963+00:00<b>Chinatown.</b><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/RYS2eFCQNTE"><embed src="http://youtube.com/v/RYS2eFCQNTE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="350" width="425"></object><br /><br />Shamelessly overdramatic and a little hokey (I'm referring to the doc, and certainly not <span style="font-style:italic;">Chinatown</span>) this is still interesting viewing. Not too keen on Bob Towne, I'm guessing. And where's my sexually irrational horse when I need her?sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1165708456488564492006-12-09T23:07:00.000+00:002006-12-09T23:54:16.660+00:00Ballet and Bolsheviks.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/3491/1844/1600/325407/Ballet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/3491/1844/320/887069/Ballet.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>It's been a funny old day. Riddled with self-anxiety I thought the best place to turn was the intrinsically charming duo of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger; those formerly 'out-of-step' Brits who've since enjoyed lollops of praise from Coppola, Lucas and Scorsese amongst others. This fact is cited quite a bit seemingly to expunge both the 'quaintness' and, in the case of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Red Shoes</span> (arguably their most celebrated picture), the overwhelming ballet factor. If that's drawing in the arthouse crowd, brilliant. But there's more to be had from this work of art than glib reference. Scorsese calls it one of the most beautiful films in colour, because it is. It's achingly beautiful. And in a state of emotional fragility, it's impossible <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> to be affected, not to be moved in some way, by the fairy tale of Victoria Page. The fact that <span style="font-style: italic;">The Red Shoes </span>includes a seventeen-minute ballet number is largely immaterial. That's not to say it's a gratuity (it isn't) but it's impossible not to be completely swept away by the sheer hyperbolic poignancy. Ballet is totally beyond me, but <span style="font-style: italic;">The Red Shoes </span>isn't.<br /><br />I was really quite shattered after my P&P fix for the day -I'm currently working <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/3491/1844/1600/484689/doctor_zhivago.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/3491/1844/320/593488/doctor_zhivago.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>my way through their boxset- though it affirmed my love for Anton Wallbrook. And so, perhaps rather erroneously, in my continued rehabilitation, I turned to another British institute: David Lean. Three hours of the chap. My History teacher decried <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Zhivago</span> as "so overrated". The tagline sells the film as '<span style="font-style: italic;">A Love Caught in the Fire of Revolution!</span>'. Well, that isn't faintly true. Omar Sharif and Julie Christie barely spend the first hour of the film together, but that's entirely the point. I think it works in <span style="font-style: italic;">Zhivago</span>'s favour. It simply isn't <span style="font-style: italic;">Brief Encounter</span>, nor is it trying to be. So, sure, the film is vast and loaded with scatty emotion -and it really can't be considered a favourable History lesson- but it's very readily accessible. A story this grand, filled with as many grand performances (Rod Steiger is the obvious highlight) is accelerated by Lean's bullied artistic drive. Stodgy and epic? Of course. Feel good and gorgeous? Why the hell not? It does gloriously skim over the horrors of Russia's governmental troubles between 1917-1923, however, but it will make you feel that love can be pure and tragic once in a while. And not just the other type.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1165260840771090112006-12-04T19:34:00.000+00:002006-12-04T19:34:00.890+00:00<b>INLAND EMPIRE Trailer.</b><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/y4hFEDYmMcM"></param><embed src="http://youtube.com/v/y4hFEDYmMcM" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br>Lynch. Dern. Zabriskie. Breathless. Release this surrealistic pillow, and release it now! sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1164463580976157342006-11-25T14:04:00.000+00:002006-11-25T14:06:20.996+00:00Bah.Wow, they pull <span style="font-style: italic;">Marie Antoinette </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Prestige </span>after a week and <span style="font-style: italic;">Pan's Labryinth </span>won't even be showing. I'm not holding out much hope for <span style="font-style: italic;">Requiem</span>. God bless Showcase Cinemas. My irony device just exploded.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1164224348282287942006-11-22T19:30:00.000+00:002006-11-22T19:45:05.443+00:00RIP Robert Altman.You may have noticed that I've been neglecting my duties recently but I felt it necessary to pay tribute to the passing of a true Hollywood great: Robert Altman. Without question, cinema has lost one of its last auteurs and mavericks (he's one of the few actually worthy of that usually peurile title). I'm in no position to comment at length on his tremendous and varied and filmography; but he is survived by his third wife, five children and a daring legacy.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/altman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/altman.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Robert Altman 1925-2006<br /><br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tt/tt060531robert_altman"><span style="font-size:85%;">Robert Altman talks to Elvis Mitchell about <span style="font-style: italic;">A Prarie Home Companion.</span></span></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div> </div>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1163978371771368522006-11-19T22:29:00.000+00:002006-11-19T23:19:31.826+00:00Review: Casino Royale<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/casino_royale_ver3.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/casino_royale_ver3.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Ah, is it that time again? Have we all become a little wearisome of camp debauchery? Apparently so - and when film analysts come to examine our socio-economic mindsets long after we're all dead, I'm sure the glut of the Iraq conflict and post-9/11 lethargy will be determining factors as to why these nittier, grittier origin stories like <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman Begins</span> and latterly <span style="font-style: italic;">Casino Royale </span>proved financially viable. The times they are a changin'. In 1995 James Bond was "a relic of the Cold War"; now his ballsier, script-doctored boss bemoans a time when conflict was a little simpler than all of this. The audience feel the same way.<br /><br />It's not that the numerous psychoanalyses inflicted upon our touchy-feely hero aren't welcome (that through line has been prevalent throughout the Bond series, no matter what they tell you) they're just a tad unbridled. The unceasing pseudo-playfulness of both Bond (Daniel Craig, beefy) and the austere Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, ravishing) quickly become nullified by the extinct want to sexy up a bland narrative only satisfying dual purpose: give that sexist, mysoginist dinosaur some emotion now and -hey!- we'd better not dedicate the second act of an action movie to a few rounds of Texas Hold 'Em.<br /><br />That's not to belittle <span style="font-style: italic;">Casino Royale</span>. There's much to like. A sprinkling of Euro stars and Jeffrey Wright are certainly preferable over a cross-dressing director, an invisible car, a moot Halle Berry and Madonna.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">****THIS REVIEW WILL BE COMPLETED SOOOOOOOOOOON. SO DON'T NOBODY GO NOWHERE. ***** </span></span>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1163331357749003362006-11-12T11:35:00.000+00:002006-11-12T11:35:57.853+00:00<b>Mark Kermode introduces The Exorcist.</b><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/aoJ-zrLO7UM"></param><embed src="http://youtube.com/v/aoJ-zrLO7UM" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br>Well, Kermode's got more charismatic over the years and perhaps he's been just too outspoken about his <i> Exorcist </i> love for this to be anything but dated yet, despite the awful fake breath, it's always quite nice to hear the good Doc pipe up about something. James King can go to hell. sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1163008078420737092006-11-08T17:09:00.000+00:002006-11-08T17:52:05.733+00:00The barf bag please.Director David Meyers on his purported remake of 1986 genre <strong>classic</strong> <em>The Hitcher:</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>"Well just the, I mean my main approach to the original was solving some of the logic flaws it had. You know I think it was a very good film<strong> </strong>for what it was and if you really study it like I have, I've kind of pinpointed certain things that really bothered me in... just in the believability of it all."</em><br /><em></em><br />Excuse me, "for what it was"? What <em>The Hitcher</em> was, and is, amounted to unhinged, surly, pulpish psychodrama with zero pretension and completely zany compulsion, provided mostly by Rutger Hauer's chilling precision. Trying to iron out "flaws" in logic is ill-judged and stupid. If we suddenly see John Ryder barraging down the highway looking for C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh with some fudged attempt at mock profundity (believe me there'll be one, he was probably abused as a child or something) then it will seep any thrill/horror out of the blind bizarro of the original. It works so effectively because we <em>don't</em> know why John Ryder does what he does. The film is in no way realistic, at least not dramatically, the mustard-keen resourcefulness of Ryder is merely means to extrapolate the inadequacies of our hero, and in turn strengthen his own validity. Origin stories don't gel for serial killers. The prequel to <em>Texas Chain Saw Massacre</em> is proof enough of that . Alas...<br /><br /><em>"Such as, why is Ryder trying to... What is Ryder's deal? Sort of embrace the idea that he's a looking to kind of end it all for himself and trying to choose the proper opponent."</em><br /><em></em><br />This is all eloquently done in the original, which is barely twenty years old to begin with. Meyers is clearly brown-nosing with his villain. Come 2007, and by the end of this gratuity, the new Jim Halsley will not have learnt how to be a man, will not have changed in his ways, by being accused of mass murder and having his would-be girlfriend literally torn in two. He'll simply be relieved at having defeated his moustache-twirling adversary. And there'll be zip sexuality. I'd normally be reticent pooh-poohing a director just because his past was in music videos (Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry speak for themselves, but even Francis 'I'm a Slave 4 U' Lawrence used his obvious stylistic traits to exaggerate <em>Constantine</em>; and for the better) yet with Meyers reeling off ditties like these...<br /><br /><em>"It has the inspiration from the original but we've reblocked it so that it hopefully plays more believable and more intelligent as far as what you would really do and I'm hoping that that subtlety upgrades it from kind of a cold TV film to something that's actually an A level thriller."</em><br /><em></em><br />... it doesn't hold much hope for his first feature film. Believability isn't a factor with <em>The Hitcher.</em> It's feeling. He hastily adds:<br /><br /><em>"But it's all theoretical at the moment."</em><br /><br />You ain't kidding.<br /><br />The whole gory affair can be read at your leisure <a href="http://joblo.com/index.php?id=13451">here</a>.<br /><em></em>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1162853388283119252006-11-06T22:32:00.000+00:002006-11-06T22:49:48.326+00:00My Filmspotting mention!!Holy cow -- wasn't expecting this. I was little behind -ok, nearly a month- on my Filmspotting fixes but oh! to my surprise when my favourite hosts Adam & Van Sam read an email from "Samuel" (that's me) in response to their <span style="font-style: italic;">Departed </span>review. Filmspotting's one of, if not <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span>, best film podcasts out there - though wasn't it more fun when it was called Cinecast?- so I'm a little bit chuffed to hear my amateurish criticisms broadcast.<br /><br />And yeah, it sounds dumb that "good entertainment doesn't have to make sense." but I'm sticking to my guns, guys! As I feverishly type on 6th November, I lament the fact this gushy blog could've been thrust upon my non-existent readership 25th October.<br /><br />The link's <a href="http://www.filmspotting.net/2006/10/filmspotting-131-last-king-of-scotland.html">here</a> and feel free to gasp in awe at around the thirtieth minute. And if you're not a regular subscriber to the Crackspotting phenomena, ask yourself: <span style="font-style: italic;">why the devil not?</span><a href="http://www.filmspotting.net/2006/10/filmspotting-131-last-king-of-scotland.html"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></a>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1162670766304859192006-11-04T19:28:00.000+00:002006-11-05T02:41:04.923+00:00Review: Little Children<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/little_children.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/little_children.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>I wanted to want to like Todd Field's <span style="font-style: italic;">Little Children</span>. My problem lies with the Dubus family - those responsible for Field's previously Oscar nominated screenplay for <span style="font-style: italic;">In the Bedroom</span>, and likewise the unfortunate duo of equally hemmed-in, delusional, precocious melodramas (read: <span style="font-style: italic;">House of Sand and Fog</span> and marginally grubbier <span style="font-style: italic;">We Don't Live Here Anymore</span>). On the surface, <span style="font-style: italic;">Little Children </span>-which cribs instead from Tom Perotta's novel- seems no different: a bunch of holier-than-thou suburbanites decide to shake things up a little, only their self-inflicted prejudices get in the way. Tragedy ensues.<br /><br />And perhaps with greater tonal clarity, the gimmick may have worked. The refreshing difference between the screen translations of Perotta vs. Dubus would be the former's nubile characterisations smack less of sexless misanthropy. Hedonistic Gen X'ers they may be, but at least their moral righteousness won't fuel rampant audience alienation. Kate Winslet's Sarah Pierce is knowingly deserving of a better life (or what she perceives to be a better life), yet without the unwelcome tang of <span style="font-style: italic;">American Beauty </span>smugness. This is, in part, aided by an omnipotent narrator, whose dry remarks fire the much needed black humour but also highlight <span style="font-style: italic;">Children</span>'s innumerate problems: surely it's a little -get this- infantile to tell us rather than show us. It's also a little presumptuous.<br /><br />Backscored by the hum of trains <span style="font-style: italic;">sans cesse, </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Little Children </span>is by parts cheeky social satire and doom ridden serialised drama. From the moment stay-at-home parents Winslet and Wilson clap eyes on each other, there's an instant expectation of adultery, partly through their broody performances but also that pesky narration. Field seems more in love this device's functionality, tonality, and personality than the enviable array of talent at his disposal. This may explain why Jennifer Connelly gets lost in the mix somewhere. Moreover the apparent catalyst of the entire affair is the undesirable integration of a former sex offender (laced with an appropriate creepiness by Jackie Earle Haley) into the neighbourhood. The trouble being it doesn’t serve the film’s central conceit at all except for want of narrative cleverness. Other than that, it’s just interesting jibber-jabber. In fact our interest peaks right about the time Winslet does. From there on in, it feels like about nine months of unwanted pregnancy. One well-acted satiric skit bungles its way into another by proxy of gawky expressiveness. <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p>Indeed, the film is largely plotless but that shouldn’t matter, it’s simply the hysterical attempt at profundity in the last ten minutes that serve to bury the entire film's mock philosophy. Falling off a skateboard just doesn’t warrant a critical re-evaluation of your dead-end existence. Similar tries to legitimise its glib disconnectivity in its final reel appear rushed and messy- an awkward contrast with the relaxed steaminess Field tries hard to maintain from the clincal opening titles. <span style="font-style: italic;">Little Children </span>is too plimp and natty to be solely driven by dialogue, yet it lacks the booksmarts of its female protagonist to exorcise a fitting conclusion worthy of its genuine moodiness. File under interesting experiment.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1162328418660764232006-10-31T17:51:00.000+00:002006-10-31T22:13:26.213+00:00What you should've watched this Halloween.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/dontlooknow.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/dontlooknow.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I like Halloween. I like <i>Halloween. </i>I like <i>The Thing </i>even more. I like the sloshy stylings of Eric Red, writer of <i>Near Dark </i>and <i>The Hitcher</i>. I adore <i>The Nightmare Before Christmas </i>despite it being tarnished by 'depressed' teens who abuse it to make themselves feel better with glitter. H.P Lovecraft would be proud of <i>Alien</i>. Vietnam allegories fly wildly in the likes of <i>Aliens </i>and <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Scream </i>proved postmodernism breeds. Horror movies are smart, and they're dumb. And the best ones do both at the same time. This is without even tapping into the inordinate number of sub-genres: science gone loopy (<i>Frankenstein</i>), the hotpot of religiosity (<i>The Exorcist</i>, <i>The Wicker Man</i>), technology and flesh (stand up David Cronenberg), comedy (<i>The Evil Dead</i>), slasher, snuff, faux snuff, and the big kahuna of them all: sex. At least since Janet Leigh took a shower in 1960.<br /><br />Yes, sex is usually the death knell for any eager adolescent ready to pop their cherry in the vicinity of a serial killer. But it can also be the stuff of emotional validity or volatility, and nowhere is this more poetically expressed than in Nic Roeg's 1973 thriller <span style="font-style: italic;">Don't Look Now</span>: simply the greatest, most haunting, beautiful, and sublimely unsettling picture I've ever seen. And even with my relative inexperience with the genre, I realise it takes a lot to incense a blind fear of the colour red. The stretched sex scene in which Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland make love to consummate their dwindling grief for their dead daughter is the one everyone remembers. Partly because it further showcases Roeg's tricksy editing (which is, by the way, unsurpassed), the scene remarkably intercut with the couple getting their clothes back on, but mostly because it suffuses the entire film with the heart-wrenching sincerity which will reach devastating proportions come the time <span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>figure decides to turn around and face the camera.<br /><br />Scraped down to basics, it's completely barmy. An old blind psychic waltzes through a church exhaling majestically. But the mood Roeg creates, contained within the unit of John and Laura's relationship, is perpetually truthful. It's intuitive. As the mind wanders, so does the camera. Once the foundation of togetherness is shattered, the frenzied explosion of "nothing is what it seems." is kept in check by sheer instinctive circumvention. If frozen lakes aren't flat, then they're certainly deep. For an ostensibly a British production, but there's nothing quaint or humble about <span style="font-style: italic;">Don't Look Now</span>. Julie Christie will break your heart.<br /><br />I was going to write a lengthy dissection of the film's burrowing psychology, but it seems rather unnecessary when the <a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bfi100/1-10.html">BFI rightly rank it as the eighth best Brit flick of all time</a> and Roger Ebert waxes favourably about it <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20021013/REVIEWS08/210130301/1023">here.</a> So say a little prayer for sex in the cinema, it can be done right, with sensitivity, and consequently scare the living daylights out of you. The Baxter marriage is the most emotionally worn and realistic relationship this side of a John Cassavetes film. And when you're dealing with the dumb/smart genre of horror, that's really quite an achievement. Just wait until the remake.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1161429355780309452006-10-21T11:15:00.000+00:002006-10-21T11:15:55.836+00:00<b>Angelo Badalamenti - Piano Mulholland Drive</b><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/6YrP7o4ujA0"></param><embed src="http://youtube.com/v/6YrP7o4ujA0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br>FYE.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1161358488340658502006-10-20T15:23:00.000+00:002006-10-20T15:34:48.356+00:00Ebert.Roger Ebert is back. <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061019/REVIEWS/610190303">Here's the proof. </a><br /><br />I loathe twonks who over-simplify the Pulitzer winning critic with the thumbs up/thumbs down logic. There's much more sincerity than that. <a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/voter.php?forename=Roger&surname=Ebert">Especially since he cites <em>Aguirre, The Wrath of God </em>as his favourite film. </a><br /><br />Good to have you back.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1160691697690303892006-10-12T20:26:00.000+00:002006-10-12T22:23:47.393+00:00Mini-review: X-Men 3<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/x_men_three_ver10.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/x_men_three_ver10.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The standing theory amongst film critics cleverer than I is that just because Bryan Singer happens to be gay, homoeroticism <span style="font-style: italic;">must </span>pervade every frame of the first two wildly successful <span style="font-style: italic;">X-Men </span>films. Though with Singer off in favour of returning Superman, the hurried installation of hetero-hack Brett Ratner in the franchise's third (and ostensibly final) instalment seems to suggest something more in line with the churlish machismo of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Rush Hour </span>films. Alas, an entirely different kind of camp infiltrates <i>X-Men:The Last Stand</i>, the kind where Ian McKellen can foist the Golden Gate Bridge over to Alcatraz whilst bellowing, “Charles always wanted to build bridges!” and –geddit?- literally doing so. Suddenly Iceman ‘coming out of the closet’ to his folks in part II seems nuanced.<br /><br />That's not to completely disregard this comic book fare. It's certainly more to the point than <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman Returns</span>. But clocking in at a lean 104 minutes, <span style="font-style: italic;">Last Stand </span>eschews characterisation in way of dumb one-liners and a schizoid dual narrative (mutant cure= bad, crazy Jean Grey= bad) which would make even the most complacent Hollywood screenwriter blush. Any goodwill toward our hard done-by mutants friends is reliant on the innate affability of Kelsey Grammer or any broody emotional hold-over which may have miraculously stumbled its way across from the first two pictures. In the end, just about as bafflingly threatening as the rise of the Conservative party; but come closing time as gleefully vapid as David Cameron the environmentalist. All filler, no killer.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1160258814105670272006-10-07T17:32:00.000+00:002006-10-09T21:21:34.480+00:00Review: The Departed<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/departed_ver5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/departed_ver5.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>There's a reason why Martin Scorsese is Earth's greatest living filmmaker. For now, it's called <span style="font-style: italic;">The Departed</span>. In a few years it'll probably be called <span style="font-style: italic;">Silence</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">-</span> his purported next project, a tale of trouble in feudal Japan, and his most radical departure since <span style="font-style: italic;">Kundun</span>- and then cower before Deed Poll following his proposed Roosevelt biopic; which again pairs him with recent bell-ringer Leo DiCaprio. The point which I'm basely trying to make is that Scorsese's career continues to be one of constant and endless re-invention: instinctively transcendent of hammy genre trappings, and whilst most of his oeuvre is riddled with angsty Catholicism and subsequently deep-rooted existential fissures, they manifest themselves in both bloody gangster sprawls and charged period drama. Yet it's the former for which this Italian-American Oscar-dodger and sometime documentarian will be remembered for. It's both a blessing and curse.<br /><br />With some diffidence, then, we approach <span style="font-style: italic;">The Departed </span>- not only a 'return' to the well-tread mean streets, but also with the added stigma of being smacked with the remake stick. This is of course is not a virginal thing for Scorsese (he eloquently updated J. Lee Thompson's <span style="font-style: italic;">Cape Fear </span>in 1991) but subsuming the poetic Hong Kong verve of slick-as-you-like <span style="font-style: italic;">Infernal Affairs </span>with a quasi-Bostonian underworld is a potentially fatal choice. Don't heed these warning signs. They're infantile and disreputable. If you think a sexagenaric auteur who's had a dodgy decade can't make Dropkick Murphys covering Woody Guthrie work, you're gravely mistaken. He'll even make it a frequent cue.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Departed </span>is about as subtle as genocide. It's an extreme, pervasive, meditation on crime and law enforcement and the grey in-between. Any idiot could you tell that. But it's also an extremely entertaining meditation, one which screams out for commercial approval -or the approval of the Academy?- amid the dizzying stylistic <span style="font-style: italic;">verité </span>that punctuates the entire picture. This isn't Scorsese being lazy, it's just this particular story calls for less moralistic inclination than <span style="font-style: italic;">Raging Bull </span>and, to a lesser extent, <span style="font-style: italic;">Goodfellas</span> because of the sheer weight of plot and the paunch of Jack Nicholson. The "even keel" between truth and duplicity Vera Farminga's character talks about is one Scorsese works hard to retain. So Nicholson might dust his floozies liberally with cocaine and spook Matt Damon with a dildo, but paradoxically it's with restraint. Or at least Smilin' Jack is countered by a knowingly idiosyncratic screenplay with an intrinsically starry ensemble to boot.<br /><br />The same can't be said for the sporadic narrative; the thread of which pits undercover romanticist cop Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) against the functional bastard-of-sorts mole Colin Sullivan (Damon) with disastrous results for the pair. But that's largely inconsequential as the film brims with such heartfelt ingenuity (I really cannot subscribe to the elitist theory Scorsese's become emotionally detached over the years) and its seeming simplicity wisely mimics both Michael Mann's cleaner <span style="font-style: italic;">Heat</span> and its stylised Chinese precursor while ignoring the gentle compulsion of blind exposition. In fact, taken as a whole, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Departed</span> houses such consistent guttural intensity, we all breathe a sigh of relief when Alec Baldwin's Ellerby casually summarises and dismisses one of the film's several McGuffins with, "I don't know what it is, you don't know what it is, who gives a fuck?".<br /><br />It won't come as much of a surprise that Martin Scorsese feels the same way.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1159043841091839612006-09-23T20:33:00.000+00:002006-09-23T20:37:21.110+00:00Joe.You must listen to <a href="http://www.kcrw.com/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?show_code=fr&air_date=9/22/06&tmplt_type=show">this</a>. Joe Morgenstern + him not liking a movie = me simultaneously wetting my pants at its hilarity and shitting them at how gosh-darn brilliantly he writes/speaks.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1158528933836169782006-09-17T21:10:00.000+00:002006-09-17T21:35:33.850+00:00Book review: The Fall of the House of Usher<span style="font-style: italic;">Let me just preface this by typing I know this is film site, but I've spent a literally about three hours writing this garbage so I'm thrusting it upon my non-existent readership whether they like it or not.</span><br /><br />People think they know Edgar Allan Poe because he married his thirteen year-old cousin. Granted, its ethical implications are more than a little questionable and as such could be considered grounds for an appropriate affixation for Poe’s foaming, vitriolic ramblings on love, hate, insanity and ostensibly everything in-between. Such a criticism, though, profoundly over-simplifies and understates a personality at once disconnected and yet palpably ferocious.<br /><br />This duplicity is no more prevalent than in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fall of the House of the Usher</span>, one of many short stories by Poe, which does away with the usual barmy protagonist as narrator and instead supplants this upon Roderick Usher: the one-time friend of our nameless guide, not only plagued by his unearthly place of residence and ill-fated twin sister but also an oppressive mental disorder which may or may not have something to do with the previous two. By eschewing the first person in this manner and up-playing the non-didacticism, Poe simultaneously adorns and degrades the soul. For itself is an emotional terror, not one of factual integrity. And so, as you’d expect, initial descriptions of the house sniffle of perpetual indulgence (“a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”), but Poe merely uses these fantasist extortions to legitimise his realist intentions. Thusly<span style="font-style: italic;"> Usher</span> has little to do with a wildly transmogrifying abode, and everything to do with the wearing of individualism – an admittedly sensationalist conclusion is poignantly two-fold; as the Usher house falls so, too, do the lives and lineage of the ashen siblings.<br /><br />One can accuse <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fall of the House of Usher</span>, and by extension most of Poe’s repertoire, of being comfortably digestible in its own horrific way. Its finale is a fitting one, it flirts with both the supernatural and spiritual, and the plot serves to typify insanity just enough to entertain. Poe is restrained and let loose at the same time, both pure and puerile, frothing at the mouth like a witless animal circling the epicentre of innate ‘Baroque-ness’. And yet this is not a desperate lunge like the slovenly poet who overflows his passion in <span style="font-style: italic;">For Annie</span>, neither the murderous semantics of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Tell-Tale Heart</span>. Instead<span style="font-style: italic;"> Usher </span>teeters somewhere in the middle: suitably aware of its own grunge and stream of consciousness but less audaciously. Then it is not with grim fascination we enter the House of Usher as the host’s ‘friend’, rather with a snooping curiosity. We are drawn to its grotesqueness not because we ourselves are grotesque – that honour is bestowed upon, ironically, a house more animated than its inhabitants- but because we ask<span style="font-style: italic;"> why</span>. Why is it the house compares to “no earthly sensation” other than “the bitter lapse into everyday life” one receives after an opium trip? Our narrator even feigns a shaky justification, and in this vein taps into some odd wealth of primal human emotion. Poe makes us afraid, and out of nothing other than opinion and manipulative observation.<br /><br />The fact that Poe is able to mask these machinations so completely is nothing short of intimidating. So whilst there’s a veritable gamut of now familiar horror staples (internment while alive, doors slamming, the original haunted house) it’s a tribute to the author that his story of the corrupted individual transcends any potentially dating genre trappings. The most obvious manifestation of this would be the invention of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Mad Trist</span>, supposedly by Sir Launcelot Canning in fact Poe himself, which serves as unlikely means to extrapolate the reader’s fear further as the sounds contained within the story-within-a-story begin to mimic those in reality. Appropriately, though, Poe drenches the story of the knightly drunkard deep in satire and the plot is intentionally nonsensical. This gimmick in other hands would be nothing other than a scant excuse to showcase the author’s talents. In Poe’s case, it rings of a knowing selflessness many strive for but few achieve.<br /><br />Subtlety is not something one usually associates with Poe, and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fall of the House of Usher</span> is no exception. Indeed, he all but stops short of bludgeoning us over the head with the novella’s wanton spirituality and vagaries of quietude. But there, in that moment, in that house, when Roderick Usher gives up his soul to bellow “MADMAN!” at his alarmed guest, there is an instant of such utterly sublime terror that strikes such a chord of unspeakable feeling that it warrants the excess that has preceded it. Expectedly compulsive and emotionally shattering, yet just as deliciously disordered as its titular dwelling, <span style="font-style: italic;">Usher</span> is a decisive work with a slobbering intensity. Just what you’d expect, then, from an American who married his thirteen year-old cousin.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“By utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher.”</span><br /><br />For Edgar Allan Poe, that idea is fear.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1157558345677329832006-09-06T15:22:00.000+00:002006-09-06T18:00:11.396+00:00Mini-review: The Sentinel<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/sentinel_ver2.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/sentinel_ver2.0.jpg" border="0" /></a> <i>The Sentinel</i> is just as gratuitous as its sensationally meaningless title suggests: a botched attempt at sexifying a tired sub-genre, with a tired leading man and sexy supporting cast. The trouble is it's so obviously inconsequential that no-one attempts to mask this and, as such, this type of film (which died a slow death in the '90s) is erroneously out-dated from the get-go. With a story so painfully high-concept (a Secret Service Agent is framed for the future assassination of the President, whilst banging the First Lady to provide convenient leverage for motive-less bad guys), one can expect at the very least a suckling pleasure dripping from the teat of convention -- especially with one alpha male attempting to re-assert his mojo (Michael Douglas) and another (Kiefer Sutherland) confirming it by playing his TV counterpart with less daughter/dead wife issues.<br /><br />Alas, there is zero conflict and zero energy in <em>The Sentinel</em>; dialogue is so meticulously trimmed to provide ostensible yet 'subtle' plots point to an unwitting audience who are really more interested in Eva Longoria's sweater puppets than conspiracy. Which is a good thing, I suppose, when all potential for this to be a relevant, post-9/11, political doozy is completely and utterly cast aside. Instead, the film is tarred with that cornball Scooby Doo logic and just plain swirly-for-the-hell-of-it direction that when it finally does unloosen its shackles a tad for a sweaty third act, one can't help but notice that everyone involved is capable of much more -not least the un-expressive Douglas- and, frankly, should know better than to sign up for such evident Hollywood hooey with an unsatisfactory penchant for being frugal rather than gluttonous.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1157203302623756162006-09-02T12:42:00.000+00:002006-09-02T13:39:08.583+00:00Marty doesn't live here anymore.Anyone who over-simplifies Martin Scorsese to a mono-dimensional, Italian-American, gangsta-lovin' auteur is profoundly missing the point. His earlier work is far more in line with the <span style="font-style: italic;">Nouvelle Vague</span>, a somewhat jerky surrealism with Catholicism nigh on invisible, or leastways existential experimentations which would later give way to the more familiar extortions of faith, doubt and self-destruction. And whilst dark situation-comedy is present in his later films (Jake LaMotta screaming about an overcooked steak to his hapless first bride, "It's like a piece of <span style="font-style: italic;">charcoal</span>!" is just one of several moments of bleak hilarity that punctuate <span style="font-style: italic;">Raging Bull</span>), it is none more prevalent than in his early shorts: <span style="font-style: italic;">What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?, It's Not Just You, Murray!</span>, and -at a stretch- <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Big Shave. </span></span>All three criticisms of society, character, and typically American ideals; yet never pushy in their execution (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Big Shave </span>can be seen as an extreme counter-culture indictment of consumerism, or simply a nut slitting his throat). Of course the results are sketchy and, in the absence of Steadicam, rough around the edges but they possess heart, vigour and personality <span style="font-style: italic;">The Departed </span>can't hope to match.<br /><br />All three can be found on YouTube <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=pWs1SM0xYiI">here</a><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span>, starting chronologically with <span style="font-style: italic;">What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?</span>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1156010404221844532006-08-19T16:08:00.000+00:002006-09-06T16:27:15.770+00:00Review: A Scanner Darkly<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/scanner_darkly.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/scanner_darkly.jpg" border="0" /></a>There's a lovely transitory period in Richard Linklater's <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">A Scanner Darkly </span>in which it ceases being a non-starting, affable <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"></span>yuppie-stoner amalgam warning with an undercurrent of post-Watergate/post 9/11 paranoia, and becomes something else entirely. It becomes emotional. An undercover narc, Fred, removes his scramble suit (so-called because it conceals its wearer as a "vague blur" under the constantly shifting identity of millions), walks down the street, goes home, and becomes Bob Arctor (here played by Keanu Reeves) - the trashy, thrashy boyfriend of Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder), who's hooked on the super-drug Substance D and debates missing gears on eighteen-speed bicycles. Arctor lies down, the music swells, and little Keanu narrates his heart out. "What does a scanner see?", he muses, "Into the head? Down into the heart?". Up until this point the film has been as schizoid as its protagonist, ostensibly flitting between junked-up, cyclical stoner talk and cagey science-fiction, but here Linklater asserts his real rabble-rousing intentions. Dual personae compete and converge, and even as Reeves occasionally clunks his dialogue, and stirs and looks sour; something odd happens. We care.<br /><br />Everything points to <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">A Scanner Darkly </span>being another of Linklater's cheeky, well-written escapist fantasies. The damn thing is rotoscoped. It plays with genre expectations initially in this manner, but quickly Linklater is unafraid to make deliberate and literal character insinuations, given the medium's, and this particular breed of animation's, advantages. So, yes, come closing credits we have a couple of fittingly obvious plot points and an ending to satisfy that nagging narrative, and yet it also reaches a poignance of sorts, augmented by a snippet of the author's coda. For some this may prove sentimentally unwarranted and cack-handed, but at worst it's oafishly cine-literate and at best emotionally transcendent. Reeves is actually called upon to emote and more than partially succeeds, Robert Downey Jr. balances delirium with insanity, and Winona Ryder, still her bug-eyed and charming self, brings a surprisingly welcome messy emotional depth and availability to a character as complex but potentially alienating as Donna.<br /><br />Just as <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Before Sunset </span>excised the blithe, giddy enthusiasm of <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Before Sunrise</span><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"> </span></span></span></span>in place of reasoned maturity nine years later (whilst losing none of the original's happy lyricism) so, too, does <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Scanner </span>transpose the philosophical naiveté of Linklater's previously drug-addled users of <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Slacker </span>and <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Dazed and Confused</span> with adult consequence in a fictitious police state "seven years from now". Of course it helps when your source material is Philip K. Dick, a pond Hollywood has been gladly dipping its feet in since 1982's <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Blade Runner </span>through to 2003's <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Paycheck</span>, only this time with less of the whizz-bang and more of the whimsy. In fact, the novel is so fiercely personal and so far removed for the author's self-professed earlier "ray-gun phase" it seems fitting that Linklater, a director known for talk rather than action, should graft a tale of innate human self-destruction and tragedy; even if he fumbles with a none-too-sly masking of conspiracy and awry sub-plot.<br /><br />The film and novel may suffer from the same curse and blessing -the plot is consciously languid and intermittently off-the-boil, Arctor's real 'motivation' for drug abuse isn't apparent until near-conclusion- but overwhelmingly Linklater focuses on the folly of self-induced arrested development and the perpetual childishness of narcotics over hollower, mainstream machinations. It's not as grim as, say, <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Requiem for a Dream </span>but is just as intellectually and gut-crunchingly viable, if a little vegetative for its own good at times. Eye-candy for nose-candy is a wonderful thing, and if <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">A Scanner Darkly </span>is guilty of any cliché, it would be only be the eternal message of any drug movie: snort carefully.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1155399680356403892006-08-12T16:16:00.000+00:002006-08-12T16:21:20.373+00:00Back.I'm back, I'm here, and I'm going to be working at slightly fuller capacity from now on : dwelling more on current reviews than news (there's some perfectly good links to your right), and hopefully a greater concentration on some of my favourite classics, contemporaries, and those downright overrated stinkers. The perpetually dull Kate Bosworth remarks in <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman Returns</span>, "Well, you're back. And everyone seems to be pretty happy about it.". Kudos, Katie, because if movies can't last; then this blog sure as hell hasn't been.sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1151084397400244902006-06-23T17:39:00.000+00:002006-06-23T17:39:57.406+00:00<b>VERTIGO. opening titles and first scene</b><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/KaB_9wPhvGg"></param><embed src="http://youtube.com/v/KaB_9wPhvGg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20661526.post-1148650418876546432006-05-26T13:12:00.000+00:002006-05-26T13:33:38.906+00:00Review: The Da Vinci Code.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/1600/da_vinci_code_ver9.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3491/1844/320/da_vinci_code_ver9.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />If Ron Howard were a culinary fellow, and his adaptation of Dan Brown's <i>The Da Vinci Code </i>were a soothing three course set, I could only comfortably akin it to a fully-baked gastronomical disaster: not so much tasteless as vapid, not so much shockingly disjointed as it is mired with an arid sensibility. Howard and his buffet Akiva Goldsman have slunk back into mediocrity, if indeed they were ever out of it, creating a world so utterly uninterested in entertaining, populated by non-personable persons, that it's only sure-fire use would be a cure for insomnia.<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br />Brainy Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is summonsed to the Louvre following the murder of casual acquaintance Jacques Sauniere and is warned by flaky Sophie Neuveu (Audrey Tatou) he is in "grave danger". Police chief Leon, sorry Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), has ulterior motives. Or something. And everything is connected to Leonardo Da Vinci, his paintings, and a crazed albino monk. But do we really care? Isn't this just an appetiser for the main event to come? Alas, no. Howard's biggest set piece is a high-speed reverse chase in a Smart car, surmounting only to a smashed wing mirror. Hardly what one expects from an ad campaign bristling with Clint Mansell and set to make a gajillion dollars. Not that action should act as the be all and end all of a summer tentpole release (although it's preferable) but the film seems so hell-bent on Bible un-bashing and simply brooding around darkened corners; Tom Hanks may as well be painting a wall for two and a half hours. We might have had a little more fun. Goldsman, not one to shy away from a helping of turkey, has seeped any personality from one of the world's most affable everymen, and that in itself can be considered the film's only remarkable achievement.<br /><br />Critics have been attacking <i>The Da Vinci Code </i>from all frontiers, but they don't seem to tap into its primal undoing - the lack of narrative drive. Howard has stuck to novel's pages like semen, and as such one can only interpret the final product as a bungled history lesson. Nowhere throughout the film's lengthy running time are we given license to halt plot and enjoy the proceedings, it's drivel followed by more drivel, and of course the 'casual' and grainy flashback - a device so festooned in screaming at an audience- it's easy to feign superiority over such a limp squib. If <i>Da Vinci </i>had loosened its shackles at any point and allowed itself to become the dizzying "treasure hunt" it promised, we may have had something. Instead we get a middle-brow, painfully average and non-controversial mess, whose only saving grace may be the utilisation of one Ian McKellen. Frankly, I'd rather go hungry.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Verdict: 4/10</span></span><br /></p>sushiandricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11106282049977506668noreply@blogger.com0