Film Reviews

The Letter T is for Tuareg

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

÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷

 

Touching the Void
[Kevin McDonald, 106', 2003, 15], 5Jan04

Is this film really so long? I was amazed to discover that this docu-tale of two lads up a mountain had slipped by so deceptively! Back in 1985 our two protaganists (then aged 25 and 21) set about some unclimbed Peruvian peak. Unfettered by common sense and fulled by the hubris of youth (oh unhappy days) a nifty and super old skool ascent of the hitherto unmounted mountain in an Alpine stylee is sought. Flash forward to 2003 and our two protaganists trace in interview the ascent and disasterous descent that followed, intercut with a reconstruction of the Andean events sketching out the drama in the awesome mountain scenery. A story that encompasses miraculous escape from certain death and all that. Stick it in a script and they'd tell you it was cobblers!

I cannot recommend this movie more highly. At first I was irritated by the sadly familair middle English man's shtick but really thats my problem. So neatly is the tale unfolded, the twin narratives of drama and to camera interview finely balanced, delivering a gripping (can't have a review of a mountaineering film without that particular adjective: it's in my contract) narrative that blah blah. . . write that bit yourselves! Wonderful!

MORE

€€€€€ - ker-chinnng!

 

÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷

Thirteen
[Catherine Hardwicke, 100', 18, 2003], Nov03

Frenetic account of early teens at large in suburban LA. Drugs, sex and drink, it's just like home but here the kids are really just 'kids' and their furious and alienated attempts to get old asap are ultimately the misguided actions of scared and lonely children, again, just like home.

Not a must-see but definetely a worth- see.*

* teddave: setting new standards in cine-literacy.

$$$$

÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷

We missed the first sixty seconds of this behemouth but it was just some wobbly dream sequence of things to come for our 'dangerous lives' protaganist and future Leader of Men, John Connor. Oh yeah, we can empathise with that after staggering out of the Ritzy's execrable Screen 2. . .

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
[Jonathan Mostow ,12A]

Arnie's back and he's left the script at home. This tedious shuffling of plot fragments from the first two in the series is to be avoided at all costs. The edit sacrifices narrative for explosive action as we negotiate the space between story with the usual CGI fest of explosions and unfeasible wish-fulfillment fantasy. Apart from a mobile crane let loose on the streets of LA (think derrick of destruction) the paucity of imagination is the only breath-taking thing on show here. An upgraded Terminator bot disguised as a beautiful woman with excellent skin is despatched from a sub -Matrix future to kill the hero in the present and deploy enough hiccups in the space-time thingy to leave even poor HG Wells spinning in his grave. all this is inadequately camflouaged with a fetish of automatic weaponry and an avalanche of fragmented glass. Arnie's outdated borg is sent by the rebels in the future to stop the T1000 superchik killer from eliminating the leaders of the. . . hang on though isn't that. . . oh forget it, just blow soemthig else up, no one'll notice it's the last film or the other one! This film is lethargic, humourless and vapid. I'm gonna get a new thesauraus to adumbrate this dinousaur of a flic. Avoid!

$

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

Home . Mission Statement . Mum . Making Movies . Words . Images . Tunes . Billionaires - oh boy! . It's Just Tripping . Links .