Film Reviews

The Letter C is for Cuspidor

0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z - €5

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Cold Mountain
[Anthony Minghella, 152', 2003,15], 06Jan04

Worth the price of admission for Renee Zellwegger's bizarre performance alone this is a film swamped in Hollywoodness. Minghella has set out to recreate the success of 'The English Patient' with this rambling tale of the power of love set against the American Civil War. Jude Law is the he, Nicole Kidman the she in our over-blown saga. Gorgeous Jude emotes in a brooding and ain't I handsome kinda way as his picaresque through the war-torn south contrives to quote 'The Odyssey' but ends up looking like the bit of the film that accidentally bought a ticket for 'Oh Brother Where art Though?' Much of this journey away from the terrifying depiction of battle that opens the film at Petersberg, VA is naught but sweet cameo as Jude encounters eccentric and oddball characters whilst evading his own army as a deserter. Heroic stuff. The vignettes that unfold are charming, a shame their idiosyncrasy didn't inform the rest of the picture.

Meanwhile vanilla Nicole, at home on Cold Mountain, waits for the man she doesn't even 'know' (yes that's a biblical allusion), their southern pre-bellum idyll all they have of a chaste love that has yet to bloom. Daddy dies leaving her to look after the farm and generally wish upon the return of gorgeous Jude: local spot of bother; trials and tribulations; Renee Zellwegger overacts; yada yada, yada. . . I may have lost my notes hereabouts but jeez, writing it up it all sounds supremely corny. And corny it is, but the whole ham-fisted affair is rather well done.

These epic love story's kinda get under a fella's skin, the overburdened pantechnicon that is the plot rather joylessly running amok down the High St chipping bits off of houses but really causing no particular damage, only to end up unsatisfyingly in the village pond. Love does out but, this being a literary adaptation, Tinsel Town closure is attained in what passes as both dark and sophisticated, a kind of cinematic plain chocolate . This is the kind of closure that registers on the heart monitors of the Oscar (wiener) crew. Expect a bunch of gongs for this pleasing, lachrymose and ultimately tedious plod through showbiz actoring. Best Supporting must go to Renee Zellwegger who I will be watching closely in future for more signs of madness, expect Beverley Hills boutique CC TV footage any day. . .

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Crimson Gold
[Jafar Panahi, 97', 12A], 12Nov03

Top and tailed by the same misguided and disastrous bungle of a heist in a jewellers, Crimson Gold spins off from its murderous opening into a long flashback that neatly pops back to its violent opening. The taciturn Hussein, middle-age and portly and his chatterbox friend XY, supplement their income as pizza delivery agents with petty crime. Identified early on as amateurish cutpurses by their naive interaction with a more sophisticated operator, we follow Hussein and his unfolding plans to marry XY’s sister. As the film progresses we are gradually drawn into a world in which government surveillance MORE

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Confidence
[James Foley, 15], May 2003

Saw this during my first 48 hours in LA earlier this year. Jet-lagged and befuddled by an eight hour time shift this stylish story of confidence tricksters impressed and bambozzled me. The LA settings appealed to my jet-set vanity and the whole thing went down really rather well. A second viewing and the deft and smart script came across rather like a flashy prestidigitation, once viewed again the magic had evaported. The liberties the script had taken with the ordered flow of time and circumstance became apparent MORE

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As I am a 'Friend' of the local arthouse cinema The Ritzy, ticket prices are reduced to the cost of tickets before aforesaid scheme was introduced. I only have to shell out a few sobs for the pleasure, bless we say, bless and bend over. Still they tried to make it up by coming round the other day with a charming Victoria sponge and an invite to pass those lost Sunday midday hours catching an unreleased movie. And it was a doozie. . . prepare for hyperbole mode!

Cypher
[Vincenzo Natali, 15]

Near future dystopian sci-fi thriller shot through with the slick steel palette of a regimented and BLAH HERE

Hoary literay antecedents: Neal Stephenson, Gibson, Borges and more Dick than you could ever hope for. Our mild mannered hero Morgan Sullivan hovers in a world of competing techno corporations. He enters the movie signing up with Digicorp, a deep cover agent assigned to spy on other companies. Thrown into a world of mind numbing conference attendences, recording and reporting back to base for new assignment it becomes apparent something is not. . . well you know! Digicorp's MORE

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