CharteredStreets Reviews

Jonathan Creek: The Grinning Man (2009) Season 4, Episode 7

A Welcome Return

[2 January 2009]

It has been more than four years since the inimitable (can you imagine if Nicholas Lyndhurst had got the role?) Alan Davies donned his duffle coat and applied his lateral mind to a baffling mystery. This time it concerns, typically and wonderfully, a spooky old room in a spooky old house. It's called the Nightmare Room, and - as Judy Parfitt ominously explains - people disappear when they try to stay in it over night; the set up has touches of earlier episodes 'Mother Redcap' and 'Satan's Chimney,' but manages to take its own path. The finest appropriately Gothic touch is the study by Hieronymus Bosch on the wall, smiling out at the poor suckers who think they can outsmart the ghost of some mad old relative kept there years ago. If you think that the episode will end with a confrontation with the ghost, you don't know Jonathan Creek.

I know Jonathan Creek a little too well. This one ranks as a good one, while not quite up there with my favourite, the 1998 Christmas Special 'Black Canary' which co-starred Rik Mayall. The first thing I liked is the show hits the ground running as an episode of Jonathan Creek; locked rooms, magicians and all. No long explanations for the four year gap, mercifully.

The appeal of Jonathan Creek is that of any hardened cynic in a world gone topsy-turvy. When things vanish from or are killed in a locked room with no means of escape or sign of an assailant (as happens in JC slightly more often than in real life), he keeps his head on. In fact he is stimulated; for all he seems relieved at the start to be done with grizzly murders, we know that JC loves the challenge. If you are new to locked-room mysteries, I recommend 'The Hollow Man' by John Dickson Carr, a novel that tells you everything you need to know about LRMs (and the finest of all, Gaston Leroux's 'The Mystery of the Yellow Room'). These give you an indication of how to apply logic to a locked room mystery, although I concede that my logic failed me last night and I had no idea how it would resolve itself (well, a bit of an idea, but hardly the whole solution). Unlike a real magic trick, where the presentation is everything and the explanation is banal, the mystery aspect of Jonathan Creek makes the mechanics of the trick an added delight. There are several methods of explaining the inexplicable on Jonathan Creek. Two relatively common ones are the variants that a) it looked odd but relatively straightforward but turns out to be the result of something much more sinister, or b) it looked incredibly sinister but turned out to be something surprisingly (and sometimes pleasingly) straightforward. The fact is we want to be surprised - some of us want to be the smartest guy in the room and say they worked it all out, but I can honestly say I've never fully worked out an episode of JC (maybe one or two from the fourth series, but even it has the superb 'Tailor's Dummy' episode).

The characters who hang around the bizarre old mansion - called 'Metropolis' and surely a reference to Charles Foster Kane's 'Xanadu', as is the opening news reel - are all appropriately suspicious. David Renwick, who has written every episode of the show (as well as One Foot In The Grave, also about a likable, cynical grump; he also directs this episode), is a natural at the mystery genre. He presents the possible suspects without making any big deal, and leaves it to the audience to take stock and evaluate. As always the biggest question is not 'who done it?' so much as 'how?' There is at least one red herring. 'Jonathan Creek' tells ghost stories then explains how there are no ghosts; with episodes like this and Black Canary it gets to have its cake and eat it too, going for creepy effects and later explaining them with a satisfyingly logical conclusion.

If there are imperfections in this show, they are not major. I would say that two hours of running time was perhaps a little inflated; this story could have been told in 90 minutes, like Black Canary, and perhaps would have a little more punch. Sheridan Smith was fine as the assistant (/sidekick?), coming on board when her own friend disappears in The Nightmare Room, and I liked the idea of one who was a match for his expertise, but the two still lacked the chemistry of Maddie and JC from the earlier series (this is not to say I'd love Caroline Quentin to come back, as I think perhaps that chemistry might not return anyway). Stuart Milligan is back as magician Adam Klaus, who Creek designs the tricks for but who never seems to shape his own public persona quite the way he'd like it; whenever he gets close, his ego gets in the way.

I hope there are more episodes to come. I'd settle for the occasional Christmas Special, to be sure. Renwick stopped doing the series in 2004 because he felt he was running out of ideas; the conceits that keep the show moving. I wonder if he thinks of an ingenious solution then works backwards to fill it out to a story, or he thinks of a deliciously eerie set-up first then has to figure out how to tie the whole thing up. An annual, or at least occasional, Christmas special might be less pressure to churn out idea after idea. I will be thoroughly satisfied if they are as good as 'The Grinning Man,' which is an excellent addition to the series and a good episode for people who have somehow managed to miss the lateral vs. paranormal dealings of Jonathan Creek the first time round.

Mysterious Skin (2004)

Sounds like a heavy drama, but has a strange lightness; refreshing and intelligent

[9/10 · 28 April 2005]

"Mysterious Skin" is a mysterious movie. Not mysterious in a boring, unoriginal way, where the screenwriter screws you around with information; mysterious in the way that the characters are opening up in front of you, and yet they're still enigmas; their depths hidden in plain view. It is the story of two teenage boys who were both sexually abused by the same man when they were younger. You already probably think the movie is dark and heavy, but it's not; it imposes no message on the viewer, and does not come to any easy conclusions. It has a strange tone throughout – a little like remembering something terrible and being unable to deal with it properly.

The movie has a lot of sex in it, but it does not comment on the sex. Sex is just an important part of the characters' lives - to Neil because he is gay and enjoys sex with older men (he works as a rent boy); to Brian because he is not sexually driven, and is surrounded by something he wants no part of.

When the two boys were younger, they were sexually abused by their gym teacher, played by Bill Sage. Neil remembers this almost with fondness; the beginning of his sexual exploration. Brian can't remember it at all; he blanked the episode out of his memory. The movie follow Brian through his journey to find out what happened during those holes in his memory, and Neil on his sad, slow decline from happiness.

While Brian is seeking him out, Neil earns enough money to travel to New York, where he continues his lifestyle until, in a scene I found difficult to watch, he is drugged, beaten and raped by one of his clients, after which he goes back home to his mother (played by Elisabeth Shue). Eventually, Brian tracks him down to find out what happened to him when he was younger.

This could easily have been the material for a heavy drama that forces a message down the audience's throat, but what makes "Mysterious Skin" so good is its refusal to resort to black and white morals. It is true that the gym teacher is under-developed as a character, but at least he isn't shown as a two-dimensional bad guy; children who are victims of abuse often like the abuser, and it is brave of the movie to suggest that Neil actually enjoyed it at the time, not knowing how it would affect him later in life, or what was being done to him. People may find this aspect of the movie makes them uncomfortable, but it is supposed to. It's rare to find movies so honest about victims of abuse.

The movie has a certain tone that's a little difficult to place; a certain lightness in details such as Brian's theory that he was abducted by aliens during his black-outs. It's not levity; more the feeling of trying to tolerate a damaged life. It has a certain erotic charge; it doesn't deny that Neil enjoys sex, nor does it suggest that he would have been straight and 'normal' were he not abused – the audience is left to decide the extent of the damage done to these boys. Some people don't like movies like that; they want the movie to do all the work for them, and give them a neat little message that they probably already know. I prefer challenging movies that dare to go to new places. Such movies are not always good, but they are always interesting.

It's difficult to get "Mysterious Skin" out of your head after you see it, and part of its strength comes from the two leads: Brady Corbet as Brian, and especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Neil. I knew the latter actor from his goofy role in "3rd Rock From the Sun," and was amazed by his work here.

"Mysterious Skin" ends with the image of Neil and Brian in the old house of their coach, Brian lying with his head on Neil's lap, and it's the performances that make the image haunting. It's not sexual attraction that brings them together, but need and confusion. Poor guys. Brian blanked out the episodes because he couldn't face the truth, and Neil can't face it either, though he thinks he can. He even convinces himself he's happy. The smiling, friendly coach damaged them more than they know, but the movie's strength is in the fact that it doesn't make us pity them.

Downfall (2004)

Chilling, insightful, and stunning - Ganz is truly amazing

[9/10 · 28 April 2005]

Robert Altman once said that if every movie were like its trailer, every movie would be exactly the same. The TV ads for Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall," starring Bruno Ganz as Hitler, are making it look like an action war movie about heroes and villains. There are a handful of explosions in the movie, and all of them are in that ad – and little else. Those expecting violence and a neatly packaged message may be disappointed, or perhaps, like me, surprised by the movie's insights, depths and power.

The movie does, certainly, have scenes of carnage and battle – how could a movie set in Berlin in the last days of World War II not? – but the majority of the story unfolds in the claustrophobic rooms and corridors of Hitler's bunker. The movie follows the stories of Hitler, Eva Braun, Traudl Junge, Hitler's private secretary, and a doctor whose conscience gets the better of him.

Hitler has been represented in countless other movies, and he is usually shown as a caricature of evil, or a mocking imitation (most famously in Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator"). Ganz's performance surpasses them all; it surpasses imitation, and he presents Hitler as human, as a paradox, as a man affected by both evil and madness. There is a pre-title scene where he stands upright in his early days in power, as he hires a secretary. He has a certain charm over women and, later, we see the way that children, too, adore him; 'Uncle Hitler,' they call him. Later, as the end of the war looms, we see the cruel way he presides over his maps and diagrams, ordering troops into certain death. He is so cut-off from humanity that his view is that if Berlin falls, its inhabitants do not deserve to live. His back becomes hunched as he barks out orders, his hands darting in all directions; its astonishing to consider that this is the same actor who was so serene and introverted in Wim Wender's "Wings of Desire."

The two main criticisms I have heard made of "Downfall" are that it is not historically accurate, and that Hitler becomes too human; too sympathetic. "Downfall" may not include all the facts, but it is not propaganda; it has no political motives or agenda. Its motives are to help the audience question situations and events that are beyond the grasp of most modern people's understanding. Movies are not the medium for fact; the truth of "Downfall" is in the way it sums up the conflicting feelings of a deceived and confused people.

What would have been wrong and 'inaccurate' would be to deny the fact that Hitler was a person, and not just an evil force, like something from a comic book. I'm not trying to say he was not an evil person; just that an evil person is still a person.

Yes, it is a 'troubling' movie, as Stanley Kauffman pointed out in his review. How could it not be? What use would a movie which showed Hitler as lacking humanity have? What interest would it have? The movie is being criticised where it should be praised; it does not manipulate the audience, or tell you how to feel. That's where its power comes from. Watching the real Traudl Junge at the movie's end, I had tears in my eyes. It's difficult to say what is so moving about the film. When Hitler dies, we do not sympathise with him; in fact we feel a certain relief, because it means the end is in sight. His way out was an easy one, but the others had to live the rest of their lives with a burden on their conscience. Traudl Junge liked Hitler as a person, and that was her own downfall.

The Amityville Horror (2005)

The Shamityville Horror

[2/10 · 16 April 2005]

"The Amityville Horror" is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying money. It's a remake of the 1979 'classic' which was based on Jay Anson's book. That movie came out about the same time that the 'true story' was exposed as a hoax, but the remake still proudly boasts that it is 'based on a true story.'

I am not particularly bothered about the story's authenticity, however; I'll leave that to the conspiracy theorists and ghost-hunters. What I am bothered about is the movie's complete lack of originality, interest, fear, atmosphere, talent, believable dialogue and story development. It looks like it's been put together from spare parts of other horror movies. It is directed by Andrew Douglas, but it could have been made by a computer.

Here are a few of the obligatory horror scenes the movie employs: 1. Axes being dragged along the ground. 2. TV and radio signals with subtle subliminal messages (e.g. 'kill them'). 3. Shots of something moving past the camera quickly, as a SCREECH! Fills the soundtrack; why are ghosts always so conscious of where the camera is? 4. The old reliable Indian Burial Ground. 5. The little girl who makes friends with the ghost that no one else can see.

And so on and so forth. I can imagine a movie that uses these clichés and is still effective, but this movie has nothing but clichés; although they are based on real people, the characters in the movie are provided with such dull dialogue that we never care about them whatsoever, which is perhaps why I found the film so lacking in scares.

But let me backtrack a bit. The film opens with the deaths of the family who used to live in a big creepy house with windows that look like glowing eyes. Ronald DeFeo hears voices in his head and kills his family. The movie decides, funnily enough, not to include the fact that the real DeFeo confessed that he made the 'voices' story up to help his case, and thus subtly justifies the fact that he cold-bloodedly killed six members of his family. This sequence is filled with so many flashes and loud sound effects that I felt as if I were having a migraine.

One year later, the Lutz family moves in. They are shown in overhead helicopter shots as they drive along the winding roads, in what looks like a tribute to "The Shining," the difference being that the shots lasted more than one second in the Kubrick's movie. As ominous music plays, the stepfather, George, looks up the stairs and seems somehow worried; maybe he can hear the music too. They learn of the murders, but are not too bothered. 'Houses don't kill people; people kill people,' says George. Oh, the ignorant fool. The house is probably the best character in the movie; about four times, we get the same shot of the camera tilting up to show us the house (sometimes with some completely redundant time-lapse photography), with its creepy eye-windows.

'Day One,' appears across the screen, and it took a huge effort for me to resist adding 'in the Big Brother House.' The family settles in, and that night, George and Kathy take part in a sex scene. It can't be said that they have sex, because when real people have sex, they're not so bothered about the way the light is hitting them. Anyway, George suddenly sees the girl from the DeFeo family behind his wife, hanging from the ceiling with a noose around her neck (screech!). He looks again, and she's gone. Since she was shot, and not hanged, I'm not sure what she was doing with that noose, but never mind.

Soon the family finds itself in the middle of a loud, tedious horror movie. The father starts becoming a little disturbed, and carries the axe around a little too much. His eyes become blood shot, for some reason. He has visions and dreams about torture and death. Windows open and shut themselves. Fridge magnets get rearranged. George and Kathy return home one day to find their daughter, who has made friends with a ghost, on the roof (screech!). 'I think something is wrong here,' Kathy concludes. The audience giggles; here is a movie where every character is dumber than anyone watching it.

Philip Baker Hall appears as a priest to exorcise the house. His attempt does not speak highly of the Catholic faith; the exorcism goes wrong, and he does a runner, telling Kathy to get the hell out of there. Even Philip Baker Hall, a fine actor, cannot make the dialogue sound as if it means anything.

Also immensely irritating is the movie's choppy editing style. This movie has been edited to death. The shots are all about two seconds long, at most. The camera can't sit still. Since "The Shining" is clearly one of its influences, the director and editor should have paid more attention to Kubrick's long, eerie shots. It's the type of editing that is described as 'slick,' but I think it's just a cover up for the lack of anything interesting on the screen. It's quantity over quality.

The biggest sin the movie commits is in being boring, I think. Once I got into the movie, and realised I was stuck with the 'slick' editing and boring characters, I gave up caring. The movie has a scene of gory fun where a babysitter gets locked in a cupboard, but little else to recommend it. If you like horror movies with lots of gore and nothing else, you might like it, but you'll still probably find it tediously unoriginal. When you hear the dog barking, do you think he'll come to a sticky end? When the family is being chased upstairs, as a storm rages outside, do you think they'll end up on the roof? Screech!

Tarnation (2003)

An intense and effective documentary that stays with you

[8/10 · 10 April 2005]

Every review, positive or negative, I've read of "Tarnation" has started with the same information: that it was made for a total cost to its maker (Jonathan Caouette) of $218. That's how much it cost for his tapes; the cameras (which vary over the course of the movie) were gifts, and he used his boyfriend's iMac to edit it, using the iMovie software. I generally prefer movies to be shot on film than digital cameras, but, on the other hand, "Tarnation" is proof that if people have a good movie in them, they can now easily get it made (distribution is trickier).

"Tarnation" is a documentary about the life of its maker, Caouette. When he was a child his mother was (wrongly, we learn) diagnosed with mental illness and taken away from him, and he had to live with his grandparents. As a teenager, he experimented with drugs and sex, then, grown up, he left his grandparents to go and live in New York, reuniting with his mother. Since he was a child, he has documented himself and his life on VHS, Betamax and digital.

Over the last few years, he gathered together all his footage, uploaded it onto the computer and, with encouragement from John Cameron Mitchell and Gus van Sant (both of whom get Executive Producer credits), edited it together (from over 160 hours of footage) into an effective and at times disturbing documentary, reminiscent of 2003's successful "Capturing the Friedmans." It was picked up for Sundance 2004, and has since been talked about endlessly among filmgoers, the talk usually being about the fact that it was made for $218 ('dollars, not pounds!' someone exclaimed to me).

Yes, it was made for $218. A lot of movies are made for that amount, and less, but (thankfully, in most cases), you and I will never see them. I went into "Tarnation" because I was interested in its technique, and I was surprised at its unusual power. It is not a movie that, afterwards, you leave to return to normality; it stays with you, and leaves you questioning what 'normality' is.

Consider Jonathan's monologues to the camera. As a boy, he dresses up in his mother's clothes and talks in a Southern drawl, which seems amusing at first until we listen to what he is saying (later, when the drugs have taken their toll on his mother, she has a long, wild speech into the camera and we realise, chillingly, that she sounds exactly like Jonathan in these early scenes). He locks himself in rooms, and films himself taking drugs. Some of this is not easy to watch (at least half a dozen people left the cinema at the screening I was at).

Inevitably, there are imperfections. There are too many montages (I'm beginning to think any montages in a movie is too many), and too much information is given to the audience through titles on the screen. The latter mistake seems like laziness, and the former seems to be picked up from other American movies that make the same mistake.

Quibble, quibble. It's my job to point out where movies go wrong, so there you go. I still think "Tarnation" is an excellent documentary, better than many I've seen that cost hundreds of times as much. I don't want to tell you too much about what happens in the movie because I didn't know, and it has some very powerful moments.

And Caouette, somehow, remains a mystery; for all his autobiographical detail, we can't quite get to the bottom of his personality. I suppose the best clue is not in the movie; it's the movie itself. I think that anyone using a camera to film so much of his life must have wanted somehow to distance himself from it.

Mean Creek (2004)

Intelligent and powerful, and with teenagers you can actually believe

[8/10 · 10 April 2005]

"Mean Creek," directed by Jacob Aaron Estes, tells a haunting story about a schoolboys' prank that goes wrong. It also features some of the most realistic teenagers I've ever seen in a movie. I've seen lots of teenagers in movies. So have you. Sometimes they're amusing, sometimes insightful, sometimes funny, sometimes stupid and annoying. But rarely do they actually reflect teenagers in real life; when real teenagers act like the "American Pie" crowd, it's probably only because they've seen "American Pie" and feel that they ought to. In "Mean Creek," they break out of the clichés and become characters with real depths, problems and insecurities.

The teenagers, however, don't take up the centre of the story; Sam, played by Rory Culkin, does. His age isn't specified, but I'd guess he is about 12; not yet wading through puberty, but sticking his toe in the water. He has a crush on his schoolmate Millie (Carly Schroeder), who has a crush on him too, and sits at home writing 'questions to ask Sam' in her diary. Millie and Sam seem to be, in some ways, a lot more mature than Sam's teenage brother, Rocky (Trevor Morgan), and Rocky's friends. Adolescence, while making the body more mature, seems, for a while at least, to have the opposite effect on the mind.

Sam is bullied at school by George (Josh Peck), an overweight, arrogant and lonely boy who films almost everything with his digital video camera. Rocky thinks they should get revenge on George by taking him out in a boat one day, playing Truth or Dare, and leaving him naked and stranded on the river bed.

Rocky hangs around with Marty (Scott Mechlowicz) and Clyde (Ryan Kelly). Marty is the most overbearing and arrogant of the group. It is revealed that his big brother bullies him, and his dad killed himself. Clyde is the most passive of the group, and Marty picks on him a lot because Clyde's dad is gay. Watching these kids together, I got a sense of a real group of people, rather than characters who simply advance the plot with every line of dialogue.

Having young people acting in a movie isn't always entirely successful, but this team pulls it off. Culkin is excellent; there is an interesting trend now amongst child stars to have depth and weight, rather than sugary cuteness (Haley Joel Osment, Dakota Fanning). Of the others I especially liked Ryan Kelly as Clyde. According to his profile on IMDb, he has been in 50 commercials since he was 2 years old; if he keeps getting roles as good as this, I doubt he'll have to do another 50.

Estes wrote and directed the movie, and it is quite an accomplishment for his first feature. In the last act of the movie, we get a sense that these kids are facing a real moral dilemma, and I believed in the way they reacted to the problem they found themselves in. Credit should also go to Sharon Meir, the cinematographer, who gives the movie a certain beauty without allowing the visuals to distract. The whole film feels both sombre and calming; it seems to work on the senses and intellect in different ways which complement each other.

Let me give you one example of what I'm talking about. The group finds itself in a difficult position – moral and practical – about two-thirds through the movie. They decide to each cut their hands as a sign that they will all keep their knowledge secret. Afterwards, Millie, so peaceful and thoughtful until now, takes the knife when no one is looking, walks over to a tree, and uses it to stab a snail. Later, Sam sees the dead snail and the knife. The editing and photography remain serene. Why did she do it? How did she feel about it? Did Sam realise it was her? I have my own ideas, and if you see the film, so will you. Good filmmakers don't spell everything out for you.

The Edukators (2004)

A bit too self-important, and sucks up to liberals, but entertaining nonetheless

[18 March 2005]

"The Edukators," a witty, entertaining but ultimately immature new German movie, is about a trio of rebellious young leftists who break into the houses of wealthy families, re-arrange their furniture (they don't steal anything) and leave them messages such as 'Your days of plenty are numbered.' They're the type of people who sit around, get high, romanticise Ché Guevara and despair at the state of society.

The B&E thing goes fine until one day the owner of the house they are in returns while they are still in it (there is a wonderful moment of suspense just before he enters). They knock him out and realise that they are going to have to kidnap him, so they take him up to an unused house in the countryside. The movie is about, among other things, the relationship between the young Marxists and the 'capitalist pig.' He seems like a pretty nice guy.

The trio are named Jan, Jule and Peter, and they are played, respectively, by Daniel Brühl, Julia Jentsch and Stipe Erceg. Daniel Brühl is the handsome, talented young actor who was last seen in "Ladies in Lavender" and "Goodbye Lenin!" and he has the potential to become a significant performer. Jule and Peter are girl and boyfriend, but we are unsurprised to learn that Jan has a crush on Jule too.

One of the delights of the movie is the realisation that the kidnapped businessman, Hardenberg, is actually sort of enjoying hanging around with his young kidnappers; they remind him of his youth. At one point he tells Jan, 'My dad used to say that if you're under 30 and you're not a liberal, you have no heart, and if you're over 30 and you're still a liberal, you have no brain.' Earlier, Jan – and the audience – does a double-take when he mentions how he is reminded of his days 'in the commune.'

It is rare for a movie to be so blatantly political these days, and yet this is the area of the movie which gives me most pause. The fact is, most people who go to see foreign-language films in this country are left-oriented educated liberals, and this movie really sucks up to them. Reading the user comments on IMDb, it seemed that people either loved the movie or hated it; in other words, liberals loved it, conservatives hated it (the former found it inspiring, the latter found it to be, in one reviewer's words, 'socialist crap'). I don't think you should decide the quality of a movie based on its politics, but this is what people are doing with this movie; it insults the right-wingers, and gives the leftists a pat on the back. But does it tell us anything new?

Another quibble, however minor: sometimes movies use music on the soundtrack to make us feel particular ways when the material doesn't work as effectively as it wants to. Towards the end of "The Edukators," we are supposed to feel sad and contemplative, so the movie sticks on Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah." If it had been a lesser song, it might have worked, but – and I know this is entirely subjective, but so is film criticism – that's one of my favourite songs, and the movie doesn't really earn it, if you see what I mean. It's such a good song that the music belittles the pictures; I almost wanted to close my eyes so the images didn't get in the way. When something is merely good, it is not advisable for it to remind you of something that is great.

While the movie has the guts to be political, it doesn't have the guts to risk giving its characters flaws; yes, they fall out a couple of times, but there ought to have been more of them realising that they were out of their depth when they kidnapped Hardenberg. When the ending unfolds as it does, the movie subtly suggests that they can be excused for what they did. The politics and the love-triangle in the movie reminded me of Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers," one of the best movies of last year. But the characters in "The Dreamers" have flaws and dimensions, and the movie doesn't suggest that everything that they are doing is right, nor does it have such an obvious political agenda.

"The Edukators" is, however, worth seeing for the performances (especially of Brühl) and the humour. It's practically a love-letter to all those teenagers who love to call anyone in a position of authority a 'fascist.' Funny, how I more or less agree with its politics, but not the way it presents them. 'Our ideals live on,' says Jule. This is one of the most entertaining propaganda films I've seen.

Palindromes (2004)

A movie that will divide audiences, but include me out.

[4/10 · 18 March 2005]

Some movies bring members of the audience together, and some divide them. "Palindromes" is a movie that no one seems to agree on; even the people who love it seem to love it for different reasons ('Sickly great!' claims one review on IMDb; 'Strange and ugly but original and necessary' says another – though I'm not sure I particularly want to see 'necessary' films). It's directed by Todd Solondz, whose controversial "Happiness" was about everything but happiness. This time, he is taking on the subject of teenage pregnancies, with hilarious consequences/heart-breaking results (depends on whom you listen to). I didn't find it heart-breaking or hilarious; by trying to be both, it's neither.

The central character of "Palindromes" is Aviva. She becomes pregnant aged thirteen and runs away from home after her parents force her to have an abortion. Throughout the movie, she is played by different actresses, most of whom are relatively unknown, except for – all too briefly – Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Aviva (whose name, as you may have spotted, is a palindrome) discovers a little commune of Christians which is happy to take her in. It is run by Mama Sunshine, who bakes the best Jesus Tear Drop cookies in the state. The children she looks after are all disabled in one way or another. She is played by Debra Monk as a caricature of a kind, conservative Christian, but how else could the role be played? I am relieved to discover that Monk's next role is as one of the Little Old Ladies in the new musical film of "The Producers," a character with much more scope for development.

You may notice what Solondz is doing here; he is reversing the stereotypes. We have Aviva's mother (played by Ellen Barkin), who is not only in favour of abortion; she demands it, almost violently, of her daughter. And we have Mama Sunshine who represents the American religious Right, but she is full of, well, sunshine; why get angry when you can make such good cookies? Among the other colourless characters Aviva meets on her journey are Judah, who prefers to be called Otto (can you guess why?) another thirteen year old whom she has sex with, and a paedophile lorry driver who sleeps with her, and later turns out to be working for Mama Sunshine's family as a hired assassin to kill abortion doctors. Subtlety is not this film's strong point.

There will be some who interpret the film differently from me and think I'm missing the point. Personally, I was disappointed to see someone of Solondz's talent resort to this crowbar satire; if pro-life people get annoyed at the way the Mama Sunshine character is shown, I can hardly blame them. Of course, humour is the most subjective of things, and you'll either laugh or you won't. I admired the way that Solondz does not give an easy answer to the extremely tricky issue of abortion, and I think the film may provoke useful discussions on the subject. I also sort of liked the device of using different actresses in the same role; it blurs the boundaries between the characters and extends the story to all young girls in this position. And I was surprised by the ultimate message of the movie; that we are who we are, backwards and forwards (like a palindrome), and that no one really changes.

All this time though, the movie is devoid of characters. Aviva, her mum, Mama Sunshine, the paedophile; none of these is a character. They're all caricatures. Despite the movie's intelligence, I never got emotionally involved at all, and I never laughed at the humour (when Mama Sunshine mourns the fact that one of the girls has run away, despite the fact 'she didn't have any legs,' I didn't laugh; I averted my eyes from the screen in embarrassment). In "Happiness," an equally tricky movie, I was emotionally involved; is there a more painful scene in recent memory than the one where Dylan Baker has to explain to his son why he is being called a paedophile in the neighbourhood? His character, along with Philip Seymour Hoffman's and the others, were, for all their faults, human beings. In "Palindromes," the actors are never really given an opportunity to act; they all wear the same expression all through the movie. That may well be Solondz's point, but it is at the expense of our empathy for them.

I'm not saying all movies have to do the same thing. I agree with Pauline Kael when she said 'movies can give us almost anything; almost everything.' But what does "Palindromes" give us, really? Solondz takes a tricky problem, presents it, and lets us make up our own minds. In that sense, the movie is admirable, but it's not much else.

Shall We Dance? (2004)

As light and silly as you expect, but not as formulaic

[6/10 · 25 February 2005]

"Shall We Dance," a remake of a Japanese film I have not seen, looks like it's going to be an ancient formula picture: bored married man spots beautiful dance instructor; they dance; tension; sex; conflict; happy ending. Yet it somehow manages to break free from the mechanics of these movies, and I found it surprisingly entertaining. It does not offer any insight, and there are no scenes in it which have any weight (although there are some that think they do), and yet its characters do not feel like they are trapped in a plot. You actually feel like the characters, however lacking in depth they are, make their own choices. It scrapes a pass.

Richard Gere plays a lawyer married to a... well, her job has something to do with fashion, I think. She's played by Susan Sarandon. The Gere character feels his life has grown monotonous and repetitive, and his marriage stale. His name is John, but you've probably already gathered that.

Every day, on the train home from work, he looks up at a certain station and sees Jennifer Lopez looking out the window of a dancing studio. Soon enough he is signed up for dancing lessons. Well, one can hardly blame him. The problem with seeing Jennifer Lopez in any movie is that she makes everyone else look like... well, like mere human beings.

The dancing school is filled, naturally, with a Cast of Colourful Characters. Omar Miller is the overweight man trying to lose some weight before his marriage, and Bobby Cannavale is the lady's man who believes that if he can dance well, women will drop to his feet. The school is owned by Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette), whose smile, we suspect, hides the tracks of her tears (the way she knocks back booze from a hip flask when no one is looking is a dead giveaway). Lopez is Paulina, a professional dancer who is sick of people joining dance classes to get in her pants.

John keeps his dancing from his wife, who begins to suspect, inevitably, the he's having an affair. In an absurd but amusing subplot, she hires a cartoon private detective to follow him around. Another subplot involves Link, a co-worker of John, played by Stanley Tucci. He is a serious businessman who watches a lot of American Football, but who secretly, Gere discovers, goes to dancing lessons too, wearing astonishingly flamboyant costumes. Well, the trailer gives that away anyway. Tucci often plays characters with a business-like seriousness, as in "The Terminal," and in this movie I liked the way that the seriousness is actually masking his inner extrovert.

You no doubt think you know where the plot is going, and you would not be entirely wrong. You would also not be entirely right. We suspect that sooner or later Gere will sleep with Lopez (or, at least, kiss her), but no, their brief flirtation leads to some sweaty dancing in place of a sex scene. Gere doesn't have much of a sex drive in the movie; we suspect that he really does just want to dance with Lopez. I guess I'd settle for that.

I don't know how closely the movie follows the Japanese original, but on its own, it's entertaining enough. It's light and fun, and it doesn't execute its story in the ways I expected. Yes, it leads up to a big dancing competition, but even then it doesn't pile on the clichés. Most of its appeal comes down to the actors; Gere has effortless charm (though not much else; he's completely unconvincing when he tries for the big emotions), and Lopez is simply a star, in the best sense of the word. John's two children are almost embarrassingly phony (the movie could have done away with them completely, no harm done), but the sense of fun that the movie has is contagious, and I caught myself smiling enough to recommend it. Part of the reason I liked it is that it rarely felt like it was trying too hard for the smiles.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Excellent family film

[4 June 2004]

And to think I once hated the whole Harry Potter phenomenon.

I hated how I couldn't turn around without seeing something Potter-related. Mugs, t-shirts, soft drinks, posters, you name it. I made the pompous mistake that most people make about Stephen King: popular equals bad.

Of course, I hadn't read the books. I didn't need to. It had to be bad; look at how many people love it. I then saw `Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,' and murmured a five-star review about how it was one of the best children's films ever made, hoping no one would notice the change of heart, and not point out my pretentions (they did).

Now comes `Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,' the third film in the series. It comes with a new director, Alfonso Cuarón, the man behind the infinitely different film `Y Tu Mama Tambien,' which was also about growing lads, but had more sex and booze than the Hogwarts rulebooks would allow. A year has passed since the last film ended, and the kids have grown up a bit (Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint being the leads). Soon Harry will have to find out how to perform the magical art of shaving.

This is the darkest of the stories filmed so far, and has an altogether less jolly feel (but you already know that from all the other reviews). A prisoner of Azkaban prison, Sirius Black, has escaped and is looking for Harry (we find out that he was a spy for the villain of the series, Voldermort). With Harry gone, Voldermort can take over again, and that can't be good, so Harry takes it upon himself to get Sirius before Sirius gets him.

There are, of course, twists in the tale that you'll either know or will have to find out. I can say that, knowing the story, I was not disappointed: as always, the images on the screen did not match the ones in my head, but I didn't care. The film is exhilarating, and stands up easily beside the first two.

And yet it's… different. The whole film is just less colourful than the first two. Literally. There is an early shot in the Great Hall, and it looked almost sepia. Very young viewers will probably find it more frightening than the earlier ones, what with those scary Dementors, who surround the school to protect it from Sirius Black, and will suck your soul out if you get on their bad side. They look a bit like cousins of the Ring Wraiths from the `Lord of the Rings' films.

If you don't know much about Harry Potter, you won't have a clue what I'm talking about. I'd advise you to see the other movies first: you can watch the second before the first, as I did, but I think you'd feel a smidgen confused by this one if you went in with a blank slate. Many characters from the earlier films (Maggie Smith's Jean Brodie-esque Professor McGonagall, Headmaster Dumbeldore, now played by Michael Gambon, who is given fortune-cookie-philosophy dialogue that he manages to sell with ease) are given less screen time, although Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) is still striding about, and, as nasty-but-fun characters go, he's still up there with Hannibal Lecter.

To make up for it, however, a lot of new characters are introduced. Emma Thompson plays the eccentric Professor Trelawny, who teaches Divination (reading tea leaves, predicting deaths etc.), and Gary Oldman plays Sirius Black with a slightly manic edge. That invaluable British actor Timothy Spall also has a small part, and David Thewlis plays the new Dark Arts teacher, who has a few dark secrets himself. If there's one thing these movies get right, it's casting.

This film is, as I said before, tinged with a certain melancholy, right from the start. It has many moments of humour, certainly. My favourite was when the children had to defend themselves from the things they fear most by turning them into things that they laugh at, and seeing Alan Rickman in drag is a sight I will not quickly forget (to achieve this, by the way, you just flick your wand and say ‘ridikulus'). But there is also that Quidditch match in the rain with the Dementors circling ominously overhead, and the werewolf, and the execution of the Hippogriff, which is a majestic creature somewhere between a horse and an eagle.

It's also perhaps worth noting that this film is 142 minutes in length, which may seem quite long, but it's actually the shortest of the films yet made, despite being based on the longest book. It's tighter than the first too, and maybe just a little too tight. Cuarón gets in moments of wit, fun characters and even a sequence with a certain beauty to it (when Harry rides the Hippogriff), but perhaps it is just that little bit too story-driven. It unfolds as well as any great story, but when I am in Hogwarts, I don't like to be rushed along.

But I am nit-picking. The film is excellent, perhaps not as fun as the second one, but just as exciting. This film is definitely taking a slightly different path from the earlier ones, but that's probably a blessing. I saw J.K. Rowling on television the other day saying how ‘this is Alfonso's baby.' Odd, for a writer to give her story totally to a director and let him do with it what he pleases. I admire her for it; it means the stories are alive and evolving under different hands.

I love the way this series fills the whole canvas with details (just look at those portraits on the walls), and its ability to make even me, a cynical teenager, believe in the characters. They fly off on broomsticks, and battle with wands, and get involved in a fight with a tree (yes, a tree)… yet it never feels as ridikulus as it sounds.

****½ (out of 5)

American Splendor (2003)

One of the great American films of the year

[25 August 2003]

‘Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff,' says Harvey Pekar, the subject of `American Splendor,' a biopic with a difference; basically, that it's about an ordinary man, someone we identify with possibly more than someone with an extraordinary life… and yet his life is sort of extraordinary. He did, after all, end up getting a movie made about him. The movie is intelligent, moving and funny. It's one of the great American films of the year.

The film alternates between real footage of Pekar being interviewed (he also narrates) and Paul Giamatti playing him, as we are told the story of his life. He is a file clerk at a hospital, who one day decides to start writing comic books called, naturally, `American Splendor.' These become a big underground hit and Pekar finds himself the subject of a play, and a frequent visitor on David Letterman's TV show. And he is still a file clerk.

He seems like a very genuine guy; he got where he is not by putting on a fake front, but by writing what he felt, and what he knew. At first, he made me think of two characters from `Ghost World,' which was also based on a graphic novel: Enid, who observes and records what she sees and knows; and Seymour, who is obsessed with collecting and not throwing anything away. I don't, though, like looking at movies from the point of view of another movie, I like looking at them from the point of view of myself, and `American Splendor' stands alone as an independent, unique triumph.

The comic books Pekar writes are autobiographical; they're about the life that Pekar leads. This film, of course, is too. His friends, girlfriend and workmates are all based on real people. The film makes you feel part of this small community, while so many movies prefer to detach you from the characters. Here is an everyman who has made a name for himself out of being an everyman. It was a journey, I'm sure, he had not intended to take.

This film is very funny. I saw this film at the Edinburgh Film Festival, where I also saw a Scottish film called `AfterLife.' For a supposed human drama, it was surprisingly devoid of human nature. `American Splendor,' on the other hand, is full of human nature, and human nature can make us laugh. The film also features a great co-star; Toby Radloff, played by Judah Friedlander, and appearing in the documentary-type footage as himself. He is a self-proclaimed nerd, who loves `Revenge of the Nerds' because it is ‘about nerds who take revenge.' When we see the real Toby, we realise there was, in fact, nothing over the top about Friedlander's performance; Toby is a real nerd. And damned proud of it. He even has a badge with ‘genuine nerd' written on it. He himself gathered a small fan base through the success of Pekar (who did, after all, put him in his comic books frequently), and must have felt his life was complete when he starred in the movie `Killer Nerd' and its sequel, `Bride of Killer Nerd.' (The films, by the way, get 2.0 out of 10 and 3.6 out of 10 respectively on IMDB.com.)

When I saw `American Splendor,' I had already heard very good things. It had gathered generally very good reviews, and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the FIPRESCI at Cannes, where it was, for some reason or another, not in the Official Selection.

After the screening, Paul Giamatti and Harvey Pekar (along with his wife, Joyce Brabner, played in the movie by Hope Davis) came on stage. He thanked us for turning up, and for going to the bother of staying after the credits for him (‘at least I think that's why you're here'). At the end of the film, the audience had seen his retirement party (he was, after all, a file clerk before everything else), just after he said he hoped that he would ‘get a window of good health between retirement and death.' He may have been the subject of an unlikely, but brilliant, biopic, and an underground comic book hero; but is he still an ordinary guy? Technically, no, but by nature? You bet.

***** (out of 5)

Yesterday (2002)

Lost me quickly, and I could never really get back into it

[23 August 2003]

If you fully understand the complexities of the plot of `Yesterday,' a new Korean sci-fi action movie, you deserve some sort of medal.

I'll try my best, though. There is a serial killer on the loose killing scientists. This leads to an investigation led by Seok (Seung-woo Kim), who accidentally shoots his kidnapped son, who was trying to escape the clutches of the killer. Later, the chief of police is kidnapped, and her daughter joins in the investigation. She is well trained and ambitious, like Clarice Starling without the emotion.

That is only the film's set up. Later (or earlier. or somewhere along the line) we are introduced to the concept of cloning, and the rights of the clones. This concept, as well as the visual appearance of the futuristic city that the film takes place in, is inspired, to say the least, by `Blade Runner,' which had androids instead of clones.

The film is directed by Yun-Su Jeon, a man with a good eye for visuals; the film looks fine. The problem with the film, it seems, is it tries to do to much; there is a lot of action, shooting and explosions, sometimes during battles where I was not even entirely sure who was fighting whom, and why they were bothering, and there is also a look at cloning in the future, as well as a sort of study into the personalities of the main characters. While I admire films that mix intelligence and ideas with action (`Minority Report,' the best film of last year, is a fine example), I think I need to have some time to breathe, and I also need to be able to know exactly what is going on. Keeping up with the plot is even more exhausting than keeping up with the action.

`Yesterday' is set mainly in 2020, in a unified Korea. It begins though, in 1990, where the scientists who are later to be killed off are picked for a special project, and some children disappear. The film starts off with a fight scene that made me think of the madness of `Black Hawk Down.' The confusion was part of the point of `Black Hawk Down,' here it is a distraction that takes much of the thrill (and all of the suspense) from the action scenes.

`Yesterday' requires a lot of attention and thought to follow the story, but it isn't really worth it. Yun Su-Jeon, I'm sure, has good films in him; what he needs to do now is find a story that he can explore more fully, without losing the audience. The film has split audiences in Korea. I do not hate it, but I did not particularly enjoy the experience of watching it; I ended up admiring aspects of it rather than enjoying it. I was looking at it rather than watching it.

While I think there could be a perfectly good character study about clones set in the future, or a perfectly good action films set in a world with clones and complex characters, the film tries to be both, never quite choosing what its main ambition is. Is it just trying to tell a story in its own way? Maybe, and maybe you'll enjoy its story, if you can keep up. I tried my best to, but didn't find the experience particularly rewarding.

** (out of 5)

AfterLife (2003)

Fails at the screenplay level; poor dialogue and a terrible closing scene

[4/10 · 22 August 2003]

`AfterLife' is about a somewhat arrogant, reasonably wealthy man who discovers that his mother is dying, and finds himself looking after his sister, who has Down's Syndrome. He can't be bothered with her, and basically just wants to get her off his hands; he has better things to do. At one point he finds that he has to take her, by car (she doesn't like flying) across the country.

If that all sounds familiar to you, it is probably because you have seen `Rainman,' a film far superior to its imitator, `AfterLife.' That it copies the basic premise (heck, it nicks a few characters and even scenes too) is not the fundamental problem with the film. The fundamental problem is that I did not care about these characters.

The brother, Kenny (Kevin McKidd), is a bit of a womaniser. He has a girlfriend who comes and goes in the story, and who learns to like the Down's Syndrome sister (again, this is taken from `Rainman'). He is a journalist, trying to get an interview with a doctor who is facing a scandal. When he ends up looking after Roberta, the sister, he doesn't have much time for her, and sometimes leaves her alone for a little too long. When she wanders off, he becomes even angrier towards her. Am I spoiling anything by saying that he becomes a nicer, loving person by the end of the film?

Roberta is not determined to be 'normal'; she is 'normal,' and wishes people would stop treating her differently. She is played by Paula Sage, an actress who does have Down's Syndrome, and her performance is easily the best thing about the film; why did the screenwriter not explore her character more? Well, probably because that would mean the characters would get in the way of the story. When we surely already know the story anyway, didn't the filmmakers see the problem they were creating?

For a film about a dying mother and her handicapped daughter (the father is absent; I think he is dead, but I'm not sure), it is surprising how little impact the film has on the emotions of the viewer. The scenes are performed in such a standard, dull way, with such standard, predictable dialogue, that I found myself rolling my eyes.

I have nothing against sentimentality in films, but it only really works if you care about the characters. Here the characters are so uninteresting and two-dimensional that I didn't really think there was much to care about. `Rain Man' has an emotional climax, but that moved me, because I cared about the characters.

Talking of climaxes, this film has a stinker. There is sequence at the end of the film that starts off as an unbelievable situation and ends up in even worse territory; an unforgivably cruel trick is played on the audience. The sequence is designed to move the audience, but ends up being horribly manipulative and offending the intelligence of the viewer. Audiences aren't stupid, and they know when the film is cheating. What a cheap shot.

There is not one scene in this film that has the impact it should. There are a few sequences that are funny, yes, but when the characters talk to each other, I can practically see the screenplay in front of me, moving predictably and uninterestingly, never hitting anything that touches the mind or the heart. There are those phoney arguments that are reserved especially for the movies, where the other character knows exactly what the reply is. Why don't supposedly 'realistic' films not realise that, in real life, anger can be irrational, and sometimes people can't express their emotions, and they might say things that don't make sense, or not be able to say anything at all? All of the actors in this film deserve better material. This film is not based on fact, but I think a documentary on a family with a Down's Syndrome member would be much more interesting. That way, we might have had truth and emotion. For some reason the characters in this film think that an emotion only involves saying something loudly and making a suitable facial expression.

** (out of 5)

Fear X (2003)

A brilliant psychological thriller

[22 August 2003]

When the moment comes, we're not quite ready for it. Neither are the characters. A security guard whose wife has been shot dead is looking into the eyes of the man who shot her. His journey was not to find out who killed his wife as much as why she died; when asked if he wants to kill his wife's killer, he simply says ‘I'm not a murderer.'

`Fear X,' directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and written by Refn and Hubert Selby Jr., is a story about a troubled, obsessed man looking for a reason for the great injustice that has struck his life. His name is Harry (Selby Jr. likes characters called Harry, for reasons best known to himself) and he is played by John Turturro. It plays as a unique look at grief; everyone copes with loss differently, and Harry makes it his duty to track down the murderer. The police want to find the shooter too, but they seem to have some hidden political agenda (this subplot is never fully explored, but, considering this is Harry's story, I prefer it being left ambiguous).

He works at the shopping centre where his wife was killed. There, his co-workers give him a lot of sympathetic looks, but never really go out of their way to make him feel better. One of his co-workers gives him videos of security footage, which he watches at home, recording faces and snippets of information about any possible suspects; faces that appear over and over, people acting suspiciously, or anyone that, in his mind, may have killed his wife. It could be any one of these people.

There is a house across the road from Harry that grabs his attention. In the film's opening sequence, we see his wife wander in. Did that really happen? Was it some vague memory? A vision, or a figment of Harry's imagination? He breaks in, and finds some leads that take him to Montana, where he attempts to find a girl whom he thinks knows what is going on.

There he checks into a hotel, with a goofy desk clerk and eerie, red, red walls. In a bizarre scene, he is visited by a girl whom we presume is a prostitute, and whom Harry resists. Her dress is also very red; it's as if she has emerged from the very walls of the hotel. It is at this point that I realised that this was not a film to take at face value.

The film is intriguing from its very opening. I don't think it is merely being purposefully enigmatic; there is something going on under the surface here. The leads from one situation to another that Harry follows sometimes seem too unlikely to fully accept, yet Harry seems determined. At the end of the film, we are left with an important passage of time unexplained. What happened while the story left the audience for that time? Does Harry know? We are given some sort of explanation by the local police that can be looked at in at least three ways, that I can think of.

The work of Hubert Selby Jr. usually sets its characters on kamikaze courses with no other choice but to self-destruct. Here the outlook is a little more optimistic. By the end we do feel like Harry's mission is over, and he can put a lot of it behind him. Refn is a Danish director who has only directed two other films, neither of which I have seen. He knows how to grab our attention, even if the film unfolds slowly (a fast pace would be all wrong for this material), and shows us some excellent visuals; the reds of the hotel, Harry's dream sequences, the way the camera cuts from a dark scene to a bright, outdoor scene, accentuated by the startlingly white snow in Montana.

John Turturro, a gifted actor, has given many good performances before (watch `Thirteen Conversations About One Thing' for proof), and this is among his best. He never really lets any big gestures or emotion out (except in that astonishing scene where he finds – or thinks he finds – his wife's murderer), but look at the subtle touches he brings to the role. Watch, for instance, the scene where the girl in the red dress enters Harry's hotel room, and we can see him almost – almost – give in to the temptation, then he comes to his senses, and pulls away ever so slightly, then almost gives in again, but knows that it would be wrong.

I think the point of the film is that Harry is messed up, and he thinks he is on a mission to discover why his wife was randomly killed. The film works best on the level of a brilliant psychological thriller; I feel that a lot of this film happens in Harry's troubled mind; that he suspects things that are presented as fact, to put us in Harry's position. I left the cinema thinking that I was sure about some things, then I realised that the film is told from Harry's point of view, and maybe even the scenes without him were only to confuse us more, maybe they are further complications within the delusions of Harry. Can we be positive that all of the scenes in the film actually happen to Harry physically, or is he just finding a way to cope with the issues and troubles that inevitably follow loss, especially if it seems unfair? Sometimes the camera seems to dive right into Harry's mind, and we are shown physical interpretations of the images and dreams that plague him. Can we be sure that it is only these sequences that are in Harry's mind?

****1/2 (out of 5)

Spun (2002)

Not as good as "Requiem for a Dream" or "Trainspotting," but more fun

[19 August 2003]

`Spun' exhausts all of those camera tricks used in `Requiem for a Dream' and `Trainspotting' that not only have the effect of letting us know how the characters feel under drugs, but making us feel the same way (in a diluted, somewhat less dangerous way). But the surprise about `Spun' is that we end up liking the characters and enjoying the ride, while the film never actually suggests that what the characters are doing is right. That's just what they do.

For the film's opening credits, each of the characters' names is placed after the actor who plays the character. They aren't just written on the screen; they are announced, in big, wild letters. These characters deserve the comic-book titles; they are big personalities.

The film is, essentially, about a few days in the lives of a group of drug addicts (‘The great thing is I can stop at any time,' says one, and the audience laughs). There is The Cook (Mickey Rourke), who makes the drug (speed) and sells it to Spider Mike (John Leguizamo), a dealer with a junkie girlfriend, Cookie (Mena Suvari, looking infinitely less attractive than she did in `American Beauty'). One of his clients is Ross (Jason Schwartzman), who does a lot of favours for The Cook and his girlfriend, Nikki (Brittany Murphy).

That doesn't sound like the recipe for an entertaining film, but I was surprised at how funny the film was at times. It doesn't drown us in anti-drug messages, nor does it become one of those, equally tedious, drug films where you feel like the sober driver at a drunken party. The humour is dark, certainly, but funny nevertheless. A lot of it comes from a subplot about Frisbee (Patrick Fugit, from `Almost Famous') who is caught by a couple of TV policemen (Peter Stormare and Alexis Arquette) and is told he will be let off if he helps them get Spider-Mike. I will only say of the resulting sequence that he does it with all the subtlety of an undercover policeman with his badge stuck to his forehead.

This is a film with a lot of energy, that seems, like its characters, not entirely sure where it is going, but determined to get there, and quickly. Although I am sure it is boring to be surrounded by people on speed when you are sober, this film almost makes you feel like you are on speed too. The director, Jonas Åkerlund, has directed music videos in the past, and it shows in his impatient filming style, as he plays around with animation, speeded-up camerawork and such like.

I'm not recommending the film for its style though, although I am sure it is the best way this material could get to the screen. I am recommending it because I liked the main characters, which I think will stick in my head for much longer than the animated sex scenes or the split screens. I can imagine an entire film about The Cook and Nikki, or Spider Mike and Cookie, or even just Ross, who absentmindedly keeps leaving a girl handcuffed to his bed for hours/days. What makes `Spun' better than those hypothetical films is that it puts the characters into their own little community, and we feel as if we are watching their everyday, speeded up, sleepless lives.

***1/2 (out of 5)

In America (2002)

A good film that could have been more

[15 August 2003]

`In America' is about a family moving to New York from Ireland after a tragedy in their lives; the death of Frankie, son of Johnny (Paddy Considine) and Sarah (Samantha Morton) and brother of Christy (Sarah Bolger) and Ariel (Emma Bolger). They move to America, presumably, to get over the loss, or to forget about it, or just to think about it.

The film allows all of them to do all three. This is a realistic film about grief that allows all its characters space to do their own thing, and consider their situation. It does not follow the clichés of this sub-genre, and works in unexpected ways with unexpected scenes.

The most unexpected thing about the film is the way it shows us the girls' point of view. A film like this would more often concentrate solely on the adults, and any children would merely be background players. `In America' is narrated by Christy, the ten-year-old daughter (her sister, Ariel, is six). She believes that Frankie granted her three wishes before he died, which she uses throughout the film, and which come true. This led me to wonder whether the film was wandering into the fantastic, or whether we are just hearing the girl's memory of the events, as children can tend to remember things as being more spectacular than an adult would remember them.

The family moves into an apartment in a rough part of New York, filled with, as Sarah puts it, ‘junkies and transvestites.' Johnny tries to find a job as an actor, while Sarah tries to keep the family's spirits up, or maybe just her own. The performance by Samantha Morton is excellent; she is playing a character somewhere between a mature adult and an innocent child, and manages to pull off both. Notice the way she smiles at her family's happiness, and then she stops smiling, as she remembers who is missing.

We are introduced to Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), the strange neighbour who paints alone in his apartment and leads to more (I can't think of a better word) magic, especially in the film's climax, which brings the different elements of the film together in a way I found more touching than anything else in the film.

There are a lot of very effective scenes. One features Johnny gambling at a fair ground for an `E.T.' doll (the family go to see it at the cinema, and it has a deep effect on Ariel), his gambling spiralling out of control until we are reminded that, when you gamble too much and win, the feeling is more one of relief than joy. Another involves Johnny realising that Mateo is hiding something. Another has Christy prove how mature and brave she is. These are excellent, powerful scenes.

Yet, I feel, the film is flawed, and did not have the emotional impact I felt it should have had on me. The innocent, almost enchanting, perspective of the girls (who give wonderful performances, by the way) is interesting, as is the perspective of the adults. But these are so different that I felt as if I was watching two different approaches to the material spliced together into a single film. The film walks the line between a fantasy fairytale about coming to an exciting new land and the reality of family tragedy, and does not succeed in marrying the two as well as it might have. I realise that the difference in view between the children and the parents may well be part of the film's point, and that families are left messed up and divided by tragedy. Yet some of the scenes in this movie are so different from others that they seem at right angles to each other, and part of the impact is lost.

`In America' is directed by Jim Sheridan, who has claimed much of the film's content is based on fact (the film is dedicated to Frankie Sheridan, his brother who died of a brain tumour). I do not doubt his claim, but I do not look for fact in film, I look for emotions and truth. The film does have these, but they're not as strong as I would have liked. I wanted to become more emotionally involved with the characters than I felt I was allowed to be.

I am recommending it though, because it is brave and well made and, more than anything else, for those two girls, whom I think I was most interesting in of all these characters. I've not seen many films where children are given the chance to show us how they deal with loss. Perhaps that is what the film should have been concentrating on. Or perhaps it should have found a better way to let the children's story and the adult's story run parallel. It's a good film, but not the great one that I believe it could have been.

*** (out of 5)

Young Adam (2003)

A patient, thoughtful film for patient, thoughtful viewers

[13 August 2003]

`Young Adam,' the new film from David Mackenzie, begins with an image that it is worth remembering throughout the film, and that a lot of people will overlook. We are shown a swan swimming along a canal from above, looking, as swans do, elegant and calm, and then we see the swan from under the water, its feet flapping furiously. I was reminded of an early shot in `Blue Velvet' where the camera moves through the grass to the bugs and insects underneath – suggesting things are uglier than they appear - and one at the start of `Lantana,' which moved through a plant that turns out to be more complicated than it seemed. In `Young Adam,' the image was similar: the contrast between above and below the surface. The image did not suggest that one was more ugly than the other, or that one was more complicated; just that they are different.

This brief but significant image is followed by one of a dead body floating in the canal, which is fished out by Joe, a young worker on a barge in Glasgow, and Les, his employer. Les has a family consisting of a wife, Ella, and their son, Jim. Simple enough. On the surface. We learn quickly that, right under Les's nose, Joe and Ella are having an affair. The early sex scenes in the film – there are many – follow a pattern; Joe approaches Ella, she says something suggesting she is not interested, but her body itself offers no resistance. She is bored with Les, and gives in too easily to Joe (the concept of giving in to temptation is perhaps the key to the film's name).

The film unfolds slowly, patiently, and in unexpected ways. The body at the start turns out to be of greater significance than we may have suspected. Joe does not restrict himself, sexually, to Ella. He uses sex as a way to add some colour to his otherwise pretty sad life, although he does not seem to get any great deal of pleasure from it. In flashback, we learn of Joe's old girlfriend, Cathie, who did, it would seem, love him on a more than physical level (we are not sure if he feels the same way about her, and he probably isn't either). They share scenes of affection and scenes of bitterness, including one that I will only describe as almost ridiculously kinky. That's one of those scenes where I was left unsure how I was supposed to feel; unsure whether the characters were enjoying themselves or whether they were finding a way to express their rage.

In a film where the plot moves slowly and rarely hits anything big, the attention and care of the audience depends on the script and the actors. The script is curious; the film's dialogue is often so dull that I could only think that this is the way people talk in real life, not in the movies. That, though, is not a criticism, especially when you consider the performances. Joe is played by Ewan McGregor, and this may be his best performance yet. It's certainly his most subtle, so much so that some audience members may be unimpressed by it, forgetting that it's sometimes most difficult for an actor to reserve emotions and still be a three dimensional character. He certainly is an interesting character, who surprised me constantly. We learn that he reads a lot, he once tried writing – and failed, using his writing time to make custard, leading to the afore-mentioned kinky scene… but I'll let you discover that for yourself – and that he wants (or wanted) to go to China.

Tilda Swinton plays Ella as a typical wife of the time – the film is set in the '50s – doing things that are perhaps not so typical, i.e. the relationship with Joe. Her habit of asking Joe if he wants some tea at awkward times gives the film a very slight edge of humour. Her husband, Les, is played by Peter Mullan. When he finds out about the affair, his character acts true to himself, rather than to the conventions of scenes about husbands finding out about their wives' affairs.

These characters do not express a great deal of emotion, and when they do, it is unexpected, and makes us reconsider the characters once more (such as a scene where Ella and Joe, rather cruelly, laugh together at the misfortune of Les). The film is also shot with patience and care, with a lot of scenes in the dark, and a lot of shots using a haunting symmetry, as when the barge is slowly consumed by a dark tunnel. It is not ugly, nor flashy, but right for the material. `Young Adam' is a patient, thoughtful film, for patient, thoughtful viewers. Shots sometimes linger on characters for a while, and some people may find themselves fidgeting, others trying to work out what is going on in the characters' heads, below the surface.

The film ends somewhat abruptly, but it is perhaps the best climax the film could have. Alternatives would have Joe do a far, far better thing than he has ever done, which would be unlikely and unrealistic; or a more neat, happier ending. I prefer this ending's ambiguity. The whole film is ambiguous, and so are the characters. They are stuck in dull lives, not heading anywhere, not moving. And that is where we leave them.

****1/2 (out of 5)

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Among the best films of the 90's

[5 August 2001]

POSITION ON TOP 100 (2001): #98. Curtis Hanson's LA Confidential is a brilliant example of people being attracted to old fashioned films. And it is very much an old fashioned films, a film noir very much in the style of the 40's and 50's film noirs and the novels of Raymond Chandler. But it is more than just a film in the style of these film noirs, it is actually like the very best of these films noirs, the script is excellent (it manages to miss big chunks from the James Ellroy book, yet still keep an excellent story with great dialogue) and the cast is perfect, from a pre-Gladiator Russell Crowe to a nasty little journalist played by Danny De Vito ("off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush"), not to mention brilliant performances from Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger. As the A.M.P.A.S. now probably realise, it should have won best picture OSCAR over Titanic, no question.

90% - ***** (out of 5)

Batman (1989)

The best comic book adaption to date

[5 August 2001]

POSITION ON MY TOP 100 FILMS (2001): 100. Tim Burton's Batman is certainly the best comic book adaption to date, and "Batman" is probably the best comic out there. Burton was a perfect choice for director, I can't think of anyone who could pull it off as well. Jack Nicholson is great at his OTT best as the Joker, whilst although Michael Keaton seems like an odd choice to play Batman, it is difficult to imagine anyone doing it after seeing the film. Burton's dark, moody style makes this feel very like the Dark Knight comic books, and every scene is beautifully shot. Many have critisised Burton for putting nothing into his films but visuals, but that isn't true. Although Burton is better at visuals than anything else (this is a movie after all, not a radio show), the script is good, and all the actors involved give it their best. The best of the Batman films (much better than Schumacher's feeble attempts), I recommend this film for anyone who enjoys the dark style of the comic, or any fan of Burton's work, which I have been since I was about 7 and I first saw this film.

90% - ***** (out of 5)

Back to the Future (1985)

Best time-travel movie ever made

[5 August 2001]

POSITION ON MY TOP 100 (2001): #99. Everyone's favourite sci-fi comedy, Robert Zemeckis's Back To The Future still works well today. Easily Zemeckis's best film, it has a great cast (Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd in the roles of the careers) and is still funny and exciting on the 50th viewing. It is the best in the series (although the sequels are fun), and can be enjoyed by people of all ages with a sense of humour. The script is great and since the special effects never go over the top, they do not look cheesy 15 years on. Not to say that it hasn't dated, the clothes and music sense is quite unintentionally funny, but this actually adds a little to the film, as it is a film about the way fashion and attitudes change over time. If you have somehow managed to miss this film, stop reading and go buy it!

90% - ***** (out of 5)

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Not a patch on the first one, but much better than JP2.

[20 July 2001]

First of all, I would like to say that I disliked the second movie. A lot. It was one of Spielberg's worst movies, and here's why: 1. It was stretched it out to 2 hours. The first film could still work at 2 hours because it was a concept few of the audience would be familiar with, so it needed to establish itself. 2. Where the hell was Sam Neill? 3. Isn't this just King Kong? It seemed to try too hard to be original, and somehow ended up being completely UNoriginal. 4. It went WAY overboard at the end, as Spielberg has a strange tendancy to do. Luckily this habit was not used in the first film.

I was worried that JP3 would have the same problems. I am glad to say that it does not. It cuts it down to 92 minutes, Sam Niell IS in it and it doesn't TRY to be original, it knows it cannot put forward any good, new ideas.

In a way, I am glad Spielberg did not direct, as he may have done what he did with JP2. So the addition of Joe Johnston was a welcome change.

The story: People on island. Dinosaurs on island. Dinosaurs chase people and roar. Very loudly. Hey haven't we heard this before? Well, I told you it wasn't original.

First, what I didn't like about JP3. Tea Leoni. She just annoyed the hell out of me, all the way through. Secondly, despite me being pleased that it was short, it did seem to end quite abruptly, almost as if they weren't sure what to do.

But, despite these flaws, I did enjoy the film very much. It reminded me that sometimes with films, you just have to sit back, stop analysing it and enjoy what you see (something the young kids in front of me were obviously doing, as they walked out the cinema declaring it was "probably the best film they had ever seen"). Sam Niell is still great, and William H Macy is in fine form, as per usual. And the bit with the pterodactyl. That hadn't been done before, so it was nice to see something original. The way it emerges from the mist was actually quite SCARY.

Plus, the effects are great. The dinosaurs actually ARE real. I think. And they roar. Very loudly. See this film with no high expectations, and enjoy it. And stop analysing it, for god sake.

3 stars (out of 5).

PS. I do realise the contradiction of me analysing the film, then telling you not to, so no need to point that out.