Popular Reviews
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Here’s one of a number of interesting sci-fi films produced in Canada in the wake of Vincenzo Natali’s Cube. It’s a low-budget body-swap futureshocker with three different actors (Stephen Baldwin, Kyle MacLachlan and Kim Coates) all vaguely playing the same man, a “floater” refusenik named Alvin Toffler. There’s a joke in that name if you’re a dyed in the wool sci-fi fan. Possibly also funny is that in this futureworld if you’ve swapped bodies (that’s the “floating” bit) with someone but can’t get back to your starting position you can park yourself inside a clone while everything is sorted out. Enter Stephen Baldwin as the empty vessel waiting to be filled. So when … Read more
26 October 2015-10-26
Out This Week Theeb (New Wave, cert 12) Jordan’s contender for this year’s Best Foreign language Oscar is, somewhat unexpectedly, an old school adventure story, the sort of thing Rider Haggard would recognise, set in a Lawrence of Arabia desert and starring Jacir Eid as a Bedouin kid. Eid is an untrained actor, as are most if not all of the excellent cast – goodies and baddies – and the plot is a basic dash across the desert, away from bad guys and towards a well which a floppy-haired English interloper wants to visit, for reasons probably nefarious. A sealed box provides a bit of a Maguffin, the cinematography knows that David Lean … Read more
The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 15 – Room Without a View
The title of EM Forster’s novel is parodied in Room Without a View, for reasons which never really became clear to me, but then on looking back over my notes to this episode I realised I could remember barely any of it. Some things I do remember, though, such as the bare bones of the plot, which are standard formula stuff – a scientist (Peter Madden) back from a mysterious disappearance attempting to kill his wife (Jeanne Roland), having been brainwashed and broken by the Chinese. Which is presumably why the overwrought man is trying to kill her, since she’s oriental (Roland was born in Burma). Is “oriental” a PC term or not? … Read more
Manon
Manon isn’t Henri-Georges Clouzot’s best film by a long stretch but it is a great example of how good he was at what he did. A richly detailed story about an amoral woman and the man she falls for, its interesting personal angle is that Clouzot is possibly using it to examine his own behaviour during wartime. The story is an updating of Manon Lescaut, by Abbé Prévost, a story familiar to most French people, who would also be familiar with the other “Manon” – Manon des Sources (which has also been turned into a film several times). Not to be confused. Prévost’s story remains popular because there’s sex and scandal aplenty in … Read more
Nora Prentiss
“Major picture-making at its worst,” was the New York Times verdict on Nora Prentiss in 1947. Yes, but… It’s also a prime example of the sort of 1940s movie seemingly designed to put women back in their box once war was over. And for that reason alone it deserves a look. It’s a classic “rogue female” movie, and Ann Sheridan is ideally cast as the nightclub singer driving a staid, breadwinning family man to destruction. They called them dangerous dames back then and it must be said that there’s nothing wilful or malevolent in Nora (Sheridan), far from it. But that just makes it worse. The girl can’t help it. Stodgy and slow are … Read more
Dr Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets
Dr Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets starts off in voiceover. “My father, The Brute, said reading Walt Whitman is a waste of time, despite sharing the same name,” says James Whitman (our teenage sad poet, played by Lucas Jade Zumann) lying on his back in a sulk on his lonely bed. He glances over at a poster on his wall of the bearded Walt. And Walt, adjusting his pose, replies mellifluously with lines from his poem All Is Truth – “And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am, And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.” It’s not only a manifesto declaration for the teenage James but an instant way of … Read more
Gazer
Straight out of the box – other viewing options are available – Gazer is a remarkable movie. How remarkable becomes clear once you know a bit of its backstory. But for starters let’s say what it’s about and who’s in it etc. It’s a neo-noir, more old-school noir than most, and stars Ariella Mastroianni as a young woman with a neurological condition called dyschronometria, which is an inability to measure time or relate to it. Frankie (Mastroianni) is adrift in the world without reference points. She struggles to keep her show on the road. As we meet her she’s being fired from (another) McJob, for being distracted by something going on in an upstairs … Read more
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
A day in the life of a Las Vegas bar, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is also a portrait of the lifestyle of the professional barfly. It’s actually the last day in the life of this bar, because the Roaring 20s is about to shut up shop for good. So there’s perhaps more of a celebratory air than usual as beers are downed and shots upended in farewell. Michael is the first and last figure we see – weaving his way shakily across a road and towards the bar as it opens up in the morning. He downs a hair of the dog, has a shave and freshen-up in the toilets and then instals … Read more
American Beauty
London theatre director Sam Mendes’s debut as a movie director has been treated by some critics as if it were a missive from the gods. Perhaps it was the opening scene which showed Kevin Spacey jerking off in the shower which did it for them – so bold, so adult. The film locks straight in to a long line of suburban dystopian drama and hangs its story off the jowls of Spacey, playing the worm that turned, the comfortable middle-class corporate Joe who chucks it all in for the easy release of drugs and sex after he becomes infatuated with his daughter’s best friend (Mena Suvari). His wife, meanwhile, is filling in the … Read more
O.S.S.
1946’s O.S.S. makes a strong case for Alan Ladd as the first James Bond, sort of, ish, in prototype. A new sort of spy thriller about a new sort of spy agency – the Office of Strategic Services was the forerunner to the CIA and had only been set up four years before – it was rush-released by Paramount, who knew that other studios were hot on their heels with similar movies. It’s written by Richard Maibaum, who’d go on to work on almost all the James Bond movies from the first, Dr No, to his death in 1991, aged 81. With that knowledge frontloaded, the experience of watching O.S.S. is indeed like … Read more
Faust
It says a lot about the continuing differences between the Old World and the New that not one of the many stabs at a straightforward cinematic version of Faust is American. The tale of the old man who sells his soul to have his youth back and then uses his new vigour to ruin a beautiful young girl’s life is a European staple, but probably not the sort of thing Tom Hanks’s agent is going to beat down Meg Ryan’s door with – in the New World you can have it all; in the Old it comes at a cost. No matter, the German F.W. Murnau made this version in 1926, in the days … Read more
Mifune
The title is a reference to Toshiro Mifune, the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s favourite actor. He died as the film went into production and director Søren Kragh-Jacobsen and writer Anders Thomas Jensen came up with the title as a way of honouring him. So, no, this isn’t Japanese arthouse; it’s Danish. Which will scare a few people off, most likely. Scarier still, Mifune follows the Dogma commandments – the puritanical, ornament-free film-making style that has Hollywood-lovers reaching for their revolvers. The story is similarly bare-bones: the wife (it’s Sofie Gråbøl, later of The Killing fame) of a newly married man (Anders Berthelsen) is far from happy when she discovers his secret history – … Read more
