Film Reviews

The Letter I is for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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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Infernal Affairs
[Wai Keung Lau + Siu Fai Mak, xyz', 15], 1Mar04

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I'd forgotten how much I hate the Clapham Picture House only after we'd coughed up the ante. THe CPH is part barn, part cinema, with an emphasis on the agricultural. Slotted into a convenient piece of real estate just off of the High Stret during '93-4, the arrival of the CPH marked the end, if there was any doubt, of the Clapham of yesteryear . Along with the torrent of near-gastro pubs that unsuccessfully mimicked the grandaddy of what has become a tiresome and overworked cliche, The Eagle on Farringdon Rd, Clarm's propinquity to the banks of lower Chelsea and its limited black population have made it the habitue of the young, professional, white fodder that feed the capital's money machines. For me it has become short hand for unimaginative people with too much money. I may be extremely prejudiced, but its my website and if you don't like it you can fukk off! (or drop me a line pointing out any shortcomings).

A soulless box for making cash money there is nothing whatsoever to recommend the Picture House to the film-goer and a great deal to offend. But what really irritates is having to sit in a crowded cinema, your elbow jostling with your neighbour's, the screen so dreadfully over-heated, your body constricted, that the expedience of having to remove clothing half way through the movie feels like a minor sexual assualt charge may be forthcoming. I may have been viewing Citizen Kane 2: Xanadu, but in such discomfort who knows, who cares! CPH sort your shit! Ah but speaking of sexual assault (see its not just trotted out you know, I can segue. . . )

In The Cut
[Jane Campion, 119', 18], 3Nov03

May be subtitled 'Meg vs. The Evil Pickle', Jane Campion's pedigree (the excellent 'An Angel at my Table', the over-rated The Piano') conjures possibility. Meg Ryan, who for me, will always be the high maintenance Sally in the brilliantly executed 'When Harry Met Eponymous', did not. The early day critics couldn't keep their eye off the hard cock sucking action, something the flim's publicists have been shoving down everybody’s throat. It was down to me to keep an eye on Ms Campion's oeuvre. Sally or no Sally, I was there!

A down town NY tale of mass murder with gratuitous dismemberment, Ms Ryan's Eng Lit Prof. Franny associates with a load of blokes, one of who might be stuck in the slice and dice stage of slaying. She shacks up with the cop on the case, the murderer is discovered, nice bit of closure. This film comes on portentous, but the feminist text is over-cooked and the film-school phallic imagery sub-Hitchcock. Characterisation is poor as Campion's frenetic camera tries to suggest an alienated and fractured community lost at the heart of the modern city. I suppose it's not a bad description of this particular part of Manhattan but the shaky camera ends up looking like it was shot by a bunch of caffeine addled sophomores. I came away annoyed at a camera that only elides the action, moving away from setting with a judder and a shake. The City at Night lighting only adds to the confusing pot pourri and where one can only presume a stab at a murder thriller is being attempted it all seems a little hackneyed. The cod Freud, a huge red lighthouse for the tiresome denouement, trust me by the time you've clocked who the murderer is: you're tired, just diminishes what might have been an interesting film.

Still, not without redemption: Campion films Meg's 'steamy' relationship with could be slayer and homicide cop Mark Ruffalo, bold wearing of Seventies 'tache award to him, well. The sex, hard cock sucking action aside, is well done, seeming real not in an erotic way, but in a curiously caring fashion, an honest appraisal of the bells that we all need to get rung once in a while. It's the direction that seems to be confused. Whatever she was trying to do, Campion has created a befuddled and discordant picture that fails at most levels. It's slightly abstract and disconnected passage is summarily bundled into a neat conclusion at odds with the timbre of the rest of the movie. There are sensational set-ups, shakiness aside, some moments of beautiful camerawork and lighting, but often their lyricism is adrift from the trajectory of the film. A wet afternoon in February kind of movie. .

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Somedays you get just what you need out of the movies. I recall the testosterone frenzy that accompanied my exit from Terminator 2. So hopped up on goofballs, I pedalled the wrong way up the Parkway, a not insubstantial four lane one-way here in London's ugly Camden Town. The magic of cinema had invested me so powerfully that I had become the indestructible cyborg, blazing away through the oncoming traffic, the sub-concious projection of my ego onto that of Arnie (boy this is embarrassing)the key to my behaviour. I wish it had been me and not a friend to come across a Kingston, Jamaica movie house kicking out the crowd after 'Enter the Dragon': all I can retell is the sight of 300 grown men high-kicking and kar-at-eee chopping at each other in a frenzy of faux fists of fury! Ahhh. . . the magic of the movies!

Then there are other films which bestow hope and offer solace, that engage with equally atavisitic needs, but ones that are less about fight or flight and more an engagement with our essential humanity. Films that hook at our ability to love and to acknowledge our own feelings of loss and sadness, joy and hapiness.

In America
[Jim Sheridan, 103', 15], 2Nov03

This is a Coming to America story of an Irish couple and their two children, the recent death of a third hangs over their getting by in poverty while Da struggles to make it as an actor in The Big Apple. A semi-autobiographical tale fashioned by Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, Bloody Sunday, In the Name of the Father), this is a wonder of a film. I truly can't recommend it enough. What could well have been a mawkish and syrupy confection is a lovingly crafted piece following the family through a year of trial and tribulation. Story is told through a series of lossely connected tableaux rather than a full bloodied narrative account. Levened with a lightness of touch and affectionate and humane comedy, the need to grieve, to connect and to love are all bourne out by the passage of time upon the family and their downstairs neighbour, the solitary artist, Mateo.

The parental leads played by Sam Morton and Paddy Considine are never overblown, but it is the two daughters who truly amaze. Now I'm as cynical about child actors as the next bitter man but the two (real life) sisters (oooh. . . I'd guess about 7and 10) have been adroitly shot and their natural energy captured, often moving the scenes that might otherwise come across as maudalin onwards. The sympathetic and complex handling of the local junkies and of the artist who we can presume is HIV+ carries us from tears to laughter and back again; I'm awarding this my teargas cannister in the audiotorium award for the year. Go see and embrace, give thanks and release!

$$$$$ - ker-chinnng!

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The clocks have gone back, its cold and its a sweaty hoik up the hill to me house on the bike. After the summer blockbusters now is the time for the decent stuff. Its a Monday night which is of course traditionally cheap seats all round here in London, and thankfully nobody is paying me to write 600 words of 'good' movie fluff to bring the punters in. Which is just as well because the Coen brothers latest just doesn't quite cut it. . .

Intolerable Cruelty
[Joel Coen, 12], 27Oct03

Essentially a chick flick, the oestrogen was washing over me as the trailer for the next Richard Curtis feel good slush fund played; the Clooney factor was in full effect. Now hereabouts we have a definite regard for that George boy. He's a kind of Cary Grant moderne, an older guy wise with the ways of the world worn and unregarded. His insouciance and casual handsomeness are played with a slightly disregarding air, as if G knows, we know, that he knows its all a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously. He may be an international star par excellence but hey, its just a stupid job and he's stuck with it. Do you think George goes in for LSD psychotherapy like Cary? We can only hope. . .

Anyway, the plot: Gorgeous George is a brilliant divorce lawyer Miles Massey, high and dry in Lalaland, a deft disposer of truth and reason in the face of insurmountable evidence. No indiscretion is too huge for his slick courtroom manner. More interested in his own dentistry then the cases he despatches with such consummate ease, Massey is ennui on rye with a twist. What he needs is Catherine Zeta Jones, R O M A N C E! An adversary. Fair enough, in the context of what very quickly becomes a screwball comedy a la the illustrious Cary, but CZJ? Iif I were present at a mud wrestling contest between CZJ and the vapid Nicole Kidman, I'd be in the john gnawing my arm off. Not two more empty husks of actors can I imagine. Attractive, for sure, like a really neat Barrett Home's estate. . . sexy: so fucking N O. The pair of them have all the charm of a soggy hyena intent on my entrails. Poor George is throwing out the charm and dishing up the goods to CZJ but does she come back at him? Does she fukk! The woman is in love with her own fantasy of herself. She is Hollywood. We can smugly presume The Coen's cast her by way of a dig at her own celebrity wife status.

Anyway enough of my envious bile. This film is genuinely funny for the first half, but either it had no charm to start with and the George factor simply wears out, or it just doesn’t have the scripting to carry its screwball mantle all the way. Intricate and eccentric plot twists creak and grind as the film becomes increasingly plain old dull. Poor old George is even made to perform one of those 'Mr. Deeds goes to Washington' speeches from the lectern of an improbably changed man. It don't wash and is borderline cringe inducing. Still if you want a decent second video to rent this could be the one. The first half is truly funny with some lovely gags and I'm sure you'll have slipped into unconsciousness for the Act Two tedium.

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