cdimdb Reviews

Little Murders (1971)

How to survive in a murderous city

[9/10 · 28 June 2009]

What do you do when the constant onslaught of muggings, defective public services, obscene phonecalls and general disenchantment of the city has crushed your once-promising career as a photographer to the point where you only take pictures of excrement - for which they still give you awards?

What do you do when people beat you up just because they notice you, and across the city people are being murdered in their hundreds by unknown assailants with no apparent motive? Why are they doing it?

And what, finally, do you do when the one woman you have found whose optimism remains undefeated by all this is shockingly and savagely murdered in your arms, at the very moment you hesitantly tell her that she's made you begin to feel again?

This marvellous, blacker-than-soot satire solves all these puzzles with an answer that seems to have put off many viewers with its callous cynicism: why - buy a gun and start shooting people yourself! There's much more to this - the film suggests - than simply joining what you can't beat. More, indeed, than simply fighting back against the incoming bullets. The implication is that - alone among the city's miserable, oppressed citizens - the snipers who are picking off strangers in the streets are actually having fun. The rest are just targets.

Brilliant, hysterical and shocking by turns, with spectacular performances all round.

Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003)

Oh, no - it's drivel!

[1/10 · 24 May 2009]

If another Hitler ever arises, it will be thanks in part to nonsense like this film, which propagates the absurd notion that he was a visibly deranged lunatic from the start. Far from following such a person and electing him to the highest office in the land, sane people would cross the street to avoid him, and he would have died in a ditch, nameless and unknown.

Anyone who reads the accounts of Hitler's close companions - the autobiography of his secretary Traudl Junge for instance - will be struck by the fact that people found him a kindly, intelligent, generous man. He was also a brilliant orator, and the fact that his speeches seem overblown and ranting to modern ears ignores the times in which they were made, when strutting pomposity was common in political speeches. Ditto the overstated anti-Semitism, which was neither a central plank of the early Nazis - who were primarily anti-communist - nor uncommon or unusual for the times. The film makes it look as though Hitler's sole ambition from the start was the Holocaust.

If you want to identify the next person who will cause the death of tens of millions, you can ignore fleck-lipped ravers life the one portrayed here. Look instead for a charming, charismatic man whose compelling speeches inspire the entire nation, and whose political work visibly and materially benefits the country. I'm afraid his personality will be much more like Barack Obama's than Fred Phelps'.

I hoped for much here, and got nothing but caricature. The fools who made this thing perpetrated a crime against reality. This is the historical equivalent of 'Reefer Madness'.

The Shining (1997)

Who ordered this?

[1/10 · 28 July 2008]

As one with more than a grudging admiration for Stephen King's work, this thing shocked me. What extraordinary hubris could have prompted King to make this film? Did he really dream it would actually be an improvement? If the rumours are to be believed, he truly felt Kubrick had dropped the ball - had 'failed to understand the horror genre'. King can be granted some license, I suppose, for the fact that Kubrick's version was very different - but here again: had Stephen never seen a Kubrick film? Because this is the Way of Stan, and no author who feels his words are somehow sacred should ever let Kubrick near them: he'll rip your book's beating heart out, take a nice big bite and then build his own new body around it. And it will be *better than yours!* Arthur Clarke couldn't handle it, apparently: his novel 2001 bears only passing resemblance to Kubrick's magnificent film. Had it been Clarke's movie, it would have been just like that wretched, misshapen thing called '2010', and no more important a work than 'Demon Seed'.

Anthony Burgess wisely shut up about Kubrick's leaving out of his wet-noodle of a final chapter, in which Alex decides to become a good citizen. He, at least, could see the improvement Stan had made And so Mr. King decided to rise up in righteous anger and show Kubrick how proper horror movies are made. Is it possible that he learned a lesson from the experience? I had considered King's versions of Von Trier's 'Kingdom' as an honest attempt to bring a remarkable work to a wider audience. Now I'm not sure that it wasn't the same conceit at work - this time showing Trier how horror films are made.

The results are the same in both cases: drawn-out Fisher-Price versions of the original; boring runts that need never have been created. And the characters! OK, look - I'm biased: I loathe chill-dren. Can't stand 'em. I have to admit that the kid carries out his acting tasks remarkably well - he seems entirely accurate in his portrayal of what would be a strenuous role for someone three times his age.

It's just that the character he plays in so accomplished a fashion repels me. I mean, what's with that top lip? It looks as though he's been breastfeeding constantly, 24/7, since he was born. That's not normal, surely? Is it conceivable that some people find it cute? I guess there's something wrong with me: near the end I was seriously hoping the little berk would get a croquet mallet in the face.

Is there anything this version does better than Kubrick's? When I read the novel, I experienced a genuine chill when the topiary beasts first start stalking one of the Torrances. I was slightly disappointed that they didn't appear in Kubrick's film, but with hindsight it's obvious they would be too overt.

And of course King had to put them in. And sure enough, they look tacky.

From the DVD, a quote from the director of this mess, on why he thought Kubrick hadn't done King's book justice: "To me, the book was about parental responsibility, and the guilt of feeling violent feelings about your family; and it's about alcoholism; and it's about that monster within us, and it's been building up and building up, ready to explode." Yeah, right. Whereas Kubrick's film is merely one of the best horror movies ever made.

The Shining (1980)

Small shout out to Ms. Duvall

[26 July 2008]

Here's a plug - as I've not found one in any other review - for Shelley Duvall's portrayal of Wendy.

She's a pathetic figure, utterly overwhelmed by the mounting problems she faces from all sides - including the man supposed to be her protector. She squeals, snivels and screams - and yet somehow comes through, driven by her maternal instinct to protect her son even at her own risk.

She and Danny are ultimately saved by the bravery of Halloran and the Sno-Cat he brings to the hotel; and by Danny's cunning in the kitchen and the maze. But also by her own efforts: reviled, outsmarted, unloved and unlovely, she nevertheless battles her terror, Jacks homicidal rage and the hotel's resident evil to rescue them both.

Other reviewers have described her character as an Olive Oyl lookalike. Wendy is not a glamorous character: her lank hair, unmade face and utilitarian clothing don't attract. Her whining dependency and weak, useless passivity in the face of Jack's anger do nothing to endear her. It's hard not to have some sympathy with Jack.

And yet, when forced to the brink, Wendy handles the business: the lucky blow she lands on Jack with the bat puts him out of action long enough to lock him in the only truly secure room available. Only the direct intervention of the hotel ghosts brings Jack back into play. In the bathroom she cuts him badly enough to delay his axe attack until he's distracted by Halloran. She has the sense to go for the Sno-Cat, and the fortitude to wait for Danny to emerge from the maze before she flees. Weaker than Jack, and much less smart than Danny, she's nevertheless the instrument of her own deliverance. Well done, that ratbag!

One other small note: if you're a writer who cares about his creations, *don't* sell your film rights to Kubrick (something that's become easier recently). He will take your core idea and make his own film out of it - and you won't like the result, not least because it will be a better creation than yours. I only wish he'd lived long enough to make his version of AI before it was turned to pap by that wretch Spielberg.

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Sunshine (2007)

The pipes, the pipes are calling

[1/10 · 14 June 2008]

I tried, I really tried, to like this film.

I wasn't optimistic when I first heard of it: the thing appeared to be yet another example of the 'Earth is doomed because X, unless brave scientists/oilmen/Bruce Willis can fix it by delivering a bloody great Nukyoolar Bahm' - where in this case, X='the sun is dying'. And Dawkins knows we've had enough of those.

This particular X snagged me, too: No, it isn't! Notwithstanding the musings of philosophers of the calibre of Alvin Lee et al, our star will keep trundling along happily for billions of year after we've all been crushed by discarded AAA batteries. You may bank on it. It's too fundamental to do a 'what if' on: the moon isn't made of cheese, either. We've moved on.

But there's no denying that the movie is very pretty. I decided on a 'watch once, then ignore' approach, until I heard about Dr. Cox's involvement, and the QBall theory. I bought the DVD on the basis that there might be a better cut that brought these more plausible mechanisms into the plot.

Alas, they only get a commentary track, presumably for us poor saps who like a little science with our fiction. All the good, if slightly star-struck, doctor really provides is a post-hoc rationalisation - one that he clearly has only grudging affection for. The film has no mention of exotic star-eating particles or the likelihood of blowing them out of the core of a giant fusion bomb using a comparatively minuscule fission bomb. The scientific basis for Capa getting to 'touch the sun', though it is actually discussed in the film, is just plain silly. After a while, the rest of this technological mess - artificial gravity that works on air**; a bomb big enough to have gravity; using a teeny garden for oxygen when there's all that solar electricity around, et bleedin' cetera - ceases to be artistic license and becomes an artistic crime-wave.

Even the religious nutter - which ordinarily I would approve of on principle - begins to look like a cheap shot: machina ex deus.

Please, Danny. Stop doing this. If you must try to do SF, and have the power to summon CERN physicists, why not do it *before* you write the screenplay, and let them advise you how reality works then - rather than using them as your defence attorney *after* you discover that your science leaks like a bogroll balloon. And read some real SF - something that Spielberg wouldn't touch.

Or recognise that fantasy's really all you can hack.

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**Yes I saw that. Don't try to wheedle out of it.

All This and World War II (1976)

Weirdly delightful

[9/10 · 2 June 2008]

The (few) negative reviewers here seem to have suffered from something of a 'But what's it for?' syndrome. It's understandable - the concept of this film is deeply odd.

But for those who get over trying to puzzle out the rationale and concentrate on the result, it's a very enjoyable one. What this film IS, is what counts: WW2 newsreel footage is interesting to watch. So are clips from war movies. Good covers of Beatles songs by competent artists are interesting to listen to. But none of these, by itself, would be likely to sustain a viewer's attention for 88 minutes. So they stuck 'em all together, edited it to add a little continuity and connection between timeline, subject matter and lyrics, and made this film.

For the majority, it seems to work strangely well. If any element flags, the others carry you along, and the gestalt somehow manages to be didactic, amusing and entertaining by turns.

I first saw this in Cinerama back in the '70s, in a state of non-ordinary reality. It blew me away. I ran around for a few days assembling a group of like-minded friends, and we all got lightly toasted and went to see it the next week. Some clot in the projection booth screwed up most of the sound system, leaving what appeared to be an effects channel, a rear speaker producing newsreel mono, and only leakage music. The result was terrible. My chums were looking at me quizzically and equating my taste in entertainment with a haemorrhoid.

Happily, the projection-room clot woke up sometime around the Battle of Midway and Elton's 'Lucy in the Sky', and the rest of the film played with all six channels as intended. My reputation was saved, but I still wanted to see the whole thing again, properly. Alas, the film was off by the next week. I'd love to see it again.

But the experience has made me nervous about buying this film from specialist DVD sellers, in case the sound has been mixed or cut down. This film is an AUDIO-visual experience, and without the multi-channel sound it's a lesser thing. I know. I was that haemorrhoid.

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The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Great thriller with a horrible pedigree

[22 August 2007]

It's enjoyable, without a doubt. The pace is excellent, and the film does a superb job of showing us the parallel intertwining threads of the Jackal and his pursuers as they spiral from tense perigee to baffled apogee. The Jackal's ingenuity in the times when he's close to capture is clever enough to make him a sympathetic character; while Lebel's brilliant detective work ensures that the audience's loyalties are with him too. With the viewer rooting for both sides, everybody wins, of course.

But, oh! - what a ghastly creation is The Jackal himself. Fox plays it perfectly, because he is to the manor born. I'm sure Freddie Forsyth was delighted with Fox's portrayal of his upper-class assassin - Eton-educated, SAS-trained, ruthless efficiency with a touch of humanity that lasts only while practical. Tough enough to deal with the lower orders, but ready to snuff them out in a moment when they reveal their swindling natures. Tough enough even to take favours from a kindly bath-house poof when needs must (and to perform, presumably, the abominable acts the deception required, though of course we're spared the details of *that*), but able to cleanse himself by killing the man shortly thereafter.

The Jackal's true proclivities are very hetero, of course - and among his own social stratum. We see him pluck a sophisticated aristocrat whose coolness crumbles before his charms. His couplings (naturally) impress her enough to shelter him from the hovering hunters. But this is not enough to guarantee his safety, so she too is snuffed out without a thought. Asking for it, she was.

The demeanour of Fox's Jackal is most reminiscent of Rowntree, the sadistic prefect in Lindsay Anderson's If...., and it seems clear that his genesis would have been just those circumstances. He's an Establishment figure whose profession just happens to be murder - an anti-Bond, replacing courage with psychopathy, sexuality with oiliness, and cool with frigidity. I bet Forsyth wishes he could be like that.

The Jackal's interaction with the gun-maker comes closest to a meeting of minds. It's an impressive scene, in which the cold professionalism of both parties is designed to awe us. "Will the gentleman be moving?" asks the machinist in his quiet way. Yes, the unnamed target is in reality just a head to be turned to a gory spray like a melon, but let's at least nod to the fact that he's a man, and even assume that he might be gentle. Ooh, how chilling.

This is not an admirable person. There probably are real people like this, and they should be made into cat-food. There are certainly countless people who believe, hope or wish they were The Jackal. I suspect that Forsyth and Fox are among them, and that, really, is what's wrong with both.

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Wonderfully well done.

[9/10 · 27 January 2007]

The DVD arrived this morning, and I slammed it straight into the player. I liked it very much indeed. Animation seems an ideal way of dealing with several elements of the story - in particular the scramble suits, which in this adaptation are much more than a cute trick, and actually form an important plot device.

I was impressed by the way that, while sticking faithfully to the book for the majority of the film, a few small details were tweaked to make them more accessible to a movie audience: the revelation of Donna's true nature was skilfully done, as well as providing a clever new element. The 'mors ontologica' plants were introduced early, and the references to 'blue flowers' helped to get the point across. Perhaps this dulled the final punchline a little, but I suspect the foreshadowing was necessary.

Luckman, Barris and Freck seemed perfect incarnations of the book characters. Arctor himself was a somewhat stronger character than the book's, but that's quite appropriate for a film.

I would have liked the New-Path scenes to have been a little longer. They were supposed to be slow, and they illustrated the extent of Arctor's near-vegetative state. As shown, the crucial denouement seemed a little rushed: from Bob's collapse to his arrival at the farm seemed less than a minute of film/real-time. The commentary reveals that more Recovery Centre scenes were filmed, but didn't make the cut.

I'm also a teeny bit disappointed that they didn't find a way to include the scene in the book which was to me the most shocking of all: the piece that begins 'Then the other half of his brain opened up and spoke to him...' In a way the split-brain aspect was less emphasised than I might have liked, which is a pity: it's a powerful metaphor for the whole story, and would help to show Bob's carefully-planned derangement. Again the commentary suggests that this may have been filmed, but left out. Maybe audiences would have been confused.

All considered, though, it's terrifically well done. I look forward to a Director's Cut in the future, if there are scenes that have actually been rendered to animation but left out. I hope so. I've been waiting for this film ever since the rumours started circulating, and I wasn't disappointed.

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Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

Amazing musical accomplishment

[9/10 · 15 January 2007]

Others here have commented more than adequately on the clever blending of Dorian Grey, Faust and Phantom o/t Opera in this remarkable film. I'd like to put in a plug for Paul Williams, whose score and concepts are not just the backbone of the work, but a clever and intricate parallel subtext to the main story.

Williams seem to be known mostly for a number of slightly twee songs he's released. Somewhat less well-known is the huge list of hits he's written for others. These, too, are sometimes a bit soppy, but looked at dispassionately they're also extremely well-crafted. This film gave me a new appreciation of his abilities, which he demonstrated again in Bugsy Malone.

It seems to me that Williams' musical work for Phantom of the Paradise could be his masterpiece. The fact that he acted, rather well, as a central character could be considered that cherry on the top of what to me is a more significant artistic contribution. The songs he wrote do much more than provide the music in the musical: each one is a brilliant package that manages to combine an element of the main story, a clever satire on the changing musical zeitgeist, and a further element of a second story that seems to be the underlying message of the film: the Faustian bond between a musician and the music industry.

Both Winslow and Phoenix are hugely talented, but that's not enough, it seems: both must sell their abilities to the Swan's Mephistopheles before they can emerge from obscurity. Both tell themselves - and others - that what they want is an audience for their work; in reality both, however, ultimately desire fame. The venality of this desire, and the price they pay to achieve it, is their downfall.

The songs describe a different story from the one shown in the film. That story is more disjointed - it's a secondary narrative, told in little three-minute windows, where only the theme of sacrifice for gain is repeated: The Juicy Fruits song 'Goodbye, Eddie, Goodbye' tells the story of a singer who records an album and then commits suicide, hoping that the publicity will boost sales, raising money for his sister's life saving 'operation'. The Juicy Fruits are archetypal late '50s rock'n'roll Latino greasers, with all the gum-chewing macho sleaze of the species.

Winslow Leach's number, 'Faust', reiterates the soul-selling theme - this time in exchange for love. Winslow himself is an awkward 'longhair' composer, very unhip and not an ideal vehicle for his own music. The music itself, of course, is excellent.

The Beach Bums are a hideously funny parody of the '60s surf craze music wave, with its emphasis on materialism a la 'Little Deuce Coup': their primary concern is their cars, and their notion of tragedy is a tear in their custom 'Upholstery'. Best line: 'Of all life's mysteries, the greatest one I've seen/ My short runs better when it's clean'.

Phoenix is introduced performing her number, 'Special to Me', the song of a woman worrying because her partner - presumably a struggling musician - is 'working so hard that you don't even know you're alive'. The sacrifice of life for fame is repeated here.

Winslow (as the Phantom) sings 'The Phantom's Theme' a struggle to integrate inner demons and angels. In the film this song is accompanied by a montage of the musical fashions that follow the Beach Bums, including a Revival group, Girlie duet, Country solo, Motown-style female harmony, and finally bringing us up to date at Beef's camp glam-rock.

At the Paradise opening, the Undeads perform 'Somebody Super Like You', with its Frankenstinian tale of assembling the perfect music star from components hacked from audience members. The result is Beef, but instead of perfection his song, 'Life at Last', tells the audience that 'All of you donated something horrible you hated' to make a perfect monster.

His sudden demise in mid-song brings on Phoenix to sing 'Old Souls'. This song appears to be a happy ending to the tale begun with 'Special to Me', in which the partners have found eternal happiness in an afterlife in which they will never be parted.

'Old Souls' is the last song in the subtext narrative. The last actual number, 'The Hell Of It', is really a coda as evil is finally defeated - rather messily, with a blood-spattered Phoenix sobbing beside the bodies of Winslow and Swan. The key focus here is the audience, who've clearly had a whale of a time, and dance ecstatically amid the carnage, enjoying the show as they have done with each previous disaster. Do they know the difference between the show and the reality? The issue is irrelevant to them. Here are the rewards of fame: a mindless crowd begging for more entertainment, as spectacular as possible.

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Ticket to Heaven (1981)

Clever, scary and important

[9/10 · 6 January 2007]

This film should be required viewing for anyone who believes in Free Will, or that Individual Liberties are all that matters.

The most profound lesson for me is the clear message that NO-ONE, no matter how cynical and initially unsympathetic, would be able to resist the methods this group employs to suck in new inductees - provided only that they are unaware in advance of what is going on. The process is brilliant, diabolical and irresistible. The sleep deprivation, constant presence of others, constant barrage of reinforcing messages, powerful peer pressure and not a moment available to think - I don't believe anyone could resist. They simply wouldn't have the time to realise that they *want* to resist.

Of all these influences I find the character of Ruthie perhaps the most frightening and effective: cute as a button, shining with enthusiasm and energy, playful, flirtatious, controlling, prettily wheedling - and totally dedicated to bringing in new freshly-emptied heads for 'Father'. I fear for my gender, because for a certain age group of men, a smiling, cajoling Ruthie can get almost anything. Various fundamentalist groups have employed such 'flirty fishing' techniques with terrible effect.

This film blends its didactic message into a tense storyline with huge skill. It's helped, perhaps, by the fact that we want to see and understand the raw documentary details as much as we want the story to play out. I still think it's well done: we see the induction process operating successfully on a typical unarmed and unresisting victim in the form of David; and on a more resistant but still unarmed Larry. Only Larry's well-prepared rescuer (Eric?) is equipped to break free of the web.

The film benefited enormously from having a set of fine actors who have gone on to great things in the industry. I'll leave it to others better versed to explore the individual performances, but to me all the parts are handled skilfully and thoughtfully by competent actors. I was particularly affected by the frequent use of what I like to call 'face acting': flashes of CU and ECU in which an actor can reveal internal thoughts and struggles without clunky words. A tiny grin on the face of Linc Strunc when he sees a point hit home in David; the final darted glance by the rescued David at the Heavenly Children standing at their car - not fear, not triumph, but not conviction either. And Meg Foster, of course, whose mutant eyes make actual acting unnecessary.

Interestingly odd note: the scene in which an exhausted David falls asleep at the wheel of the van taking his companions home, and swerves off the highway into a ditch. In his mixed terror and relief at surviving the accident, the other members gather round, laughing and hugging him, without a hint of blame for having nearly killed them all. This was genuine and touching, but the open and loving camaraderie is also one of the chains that bind David to the group. Clever, I thought.

Perhaps the most significant question of the film - unstated and perhaps unintentional - is this: the Heavenly Children are a cult, and defined as such, so we may ignore their teachings and beliefs as mere fantasies with no basis. But what distinguishes a cult from other faith-based belief systems whose primary symbols are a deity, a messiah, and a Satan? Their wider acceptance? Whatever one's opinion about religion in all its forms, it certainly creates the mind-set and iconography in which cults have flourished throughout the centuries - sometimes going on to become the standard in their part of the world.

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Lemming (2005)

Yeah, so what?

[6/10 · 4 January 2007]

Well, I guess I enjoyed it. But then again I might have liked it more if the underlying driver for the story had not been tired old sexual jealousy again. It worries me that Martians tapping into Earth's filmic output will be forced to conclude that infidelity is humanity's only motivator. And that the whole business has now become so formulaic that it scarcely needs an actual event to get the process of destruction started.

Alain, after all, didn't actually *do* anything naughty. When the boss's wife comes on to him he acts with a restraint that is probably more unlikely than it is commendable. His only 'crime' is in not telling his wife all about it - which I would have though was a perfectly sensible choice given her whacko response when she finds out anyway. If keeping things to yourself is so terrible, how about her own failure to disclose the suspicion that festers within her thereafter, and ultimately leads to all the nastiness? I realise that these questions are all supposed to be tangential to the story, and we're supposed to concentrate on the mysterious dark influence of Alice on the lives of the couple and M. Pollock, with the strange presence of the lemming adding a weird metaphorical counterpoint to it all. And finally, the lemming is dead, along with both the Pollocks, nobody is sleeping with anyone they shouldn't, and life returns to suburban domestic bliss. Yeah, well, that's interesting - but I'm afraid my irritation with the weak underlying motivation failed to stretch my belief suspenders. Am I really supposed to accept that Alain and Bénédicte would not have sat down and talked about any of their respective worries, and continued to converse in sleepy monosyllables while the chaos mounted? Some here have compared this work with Lynch. I don't buy it. Lynch tells weird stories, only parts of which he puts on the screen. But they're all there if you hunt, and they're consistent when they have to be. This film had Lynchian moments, like the fantasy return home to a house full of lemmings, but Lynch wouldn't have pulled the punch the way this did.

I dunno. Maybe I'm missing things. Probably I'm missing things. Trouble is, I don't feel strongly enough to care. The only character whose fate and future I was really concerned about was the lemming.

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Knife in the Head (1978)

Wonderful, but where is it?

[9/10 · 30 December 2006]

It's astounding that this superb film is so obscure. Bruno Ganz is a well known German actor, and his performance in this film is a technical masterwork. Why has the German film industry not dusted off the master and released it as a DVD? With subtitles it should do well in any country. If it were to be dubbed into English it could be very popular in the UK and US - and German dubbing, though usually in the other direction, is always technically excellent.

Ganz's portrayal of a man coming around from severe brain damage is intensely plausible, but accurate as well. Having witnessed the mother of a friend's recovery from a massive stroke, I can confirm its authenticity. The process is eerily similar to accelerated childhood as the blank slate slowly repopulates itself with knowledge, but in a very different way from that experienced by a child, and complicated by traces of lost adult memories.

The title of the film - Messer im Kopf/Knife in the Head - is a semantic trick that cleverly sets up the mystery that poor, damaged Hoffmann must solve. Why is a film about someone who has so obviously suffered a *bullet* in the head so named? Despite his crippling affliction, he's sure there is something wrong with the story of his alleged attack on the policeman. Only one person knows...

The film's political thrust is perfectly on-target. Police who become the enemies of their own people and protect only their corrupt masters are all too common in the world, and in such circumstances expediency will always triumph over laws or even basic morals. The scene that illuminates this is, I think, the one where the shattered Hoffmann is confronted by the policeman who shot him, and his crippling wounds are contrasted with the insignificant scar on the officer's belly. The unasked question is plain: is Hoffmann's near destruction appropriate punishment for this little blemish? Marvellous film. One point off for being hopelessly unobtainable.

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King Kong (2005)

Big, hairy and not very clever

[5/10 · 3 September 2006]

Others have commented adequately on the excessive duration of the thing, and I think the point's been made about the impracticality of padding what is ultimately a giant-gorilla-meets/loses/finds-girl story out to three hours. Interesting how even the most frenetic action scenes can become boring after the tenth dinosaur makes a lunge.

Anyone who's seen Naomi Watts' masterclass acting performance in Mulholland Drive will know that she's a spectacular talent. Depressing, then, that she has to spend such a large portion of the film endlessly yelling 'urk! ...arghh! ...eek! ...aah! ...umph! ...aiyee! ...etc.'. And the brief bits of real acting she does get to do are hardly a stretch for her.

Jack Black, like John Belushi, is one of those strange people who command audience attention whenever they're in-frame. I suspect it's in the eyebrows. I hope he goes even higher, without losing his anarchic streak and alter-ego in Tenacious D. If someone can find him a role that combines his superb musical talents as well as his acting. School of Rock wasn't it.

Some have complained, but to my mind the special effects - especially of Kong himself - were extraordinarily good. We're reaching the point where the visuals are so good that they're almost perfect, and if there's a niggling, residual sense of unreality left I'd suggest it's because there are no real fifty-foot gorillas.

This film had, I think, some very good moment, but they were too dilute. My biggest problem with the film is perhaps a lot more arty-farty than these considerations: I don't think it's healthy for us to feed ourselves images like this: humans are nearly indestructible - nothing from giant apes to giant spiders can kill the really good guys. And all the other creatures in the entire world are just aching to get the teeth in our soft and yielding flesh, and will battle each other to the death to get to us first.

It can't be wise. There are already reports of people thrown into slack-jawed confusion when real things go wrong, and no Superman materialises to save the day. No doubt there are others who think that if they stride forward with a steely expression, the bullets will miss them. The wake-up call came, and now nobody will be able to hijack a plane with just a little knife again. It took an event that has killed hundreds of thousands for people to get a realistic grasp on such things.

And on the other side: animals out there, from creepy-crawlies to gorillas, are just trying to stay alive. Even if they have weapons like big teeth or stings, unless they're hungry and routinely eat humans they would probably prefer to stay away from you.

And practically nothing routinely eats humans anymore. Even top predators are unlikely to try unless they're very desperate or stupid enough to be very confident. Remember that most predators have a lot to lose if they make a mistake and you damage them - even if they get you in the end. If they hurt a leg or lose an eye in the process, you could be the last meal they catch.

If anyone wants to see how real gorillas behave with small cute things, google Koko's Kitten.

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Final Days of Planet Earth (2006– )

The Plummet of the Phoenix

[2/10 · 28 August 2006]

While this terrible mess deserves all the bad things said about it, I have a strong suspicion that the film was not intended to be what finally appeared on the screen. The storyline is simply too screwed-up to have been intentional.

My theory is that the film as published is actually an attempt to resurrect a project that was abandoned without being completed. Perhaps it ran overbudget. Perhaps the principals realised that it would be a dog whatever happened. Perhaps somebody died.

The result was a pile of footage with many scenes unfilmed, and many issues unresolved. Some brave person took this pile of dross and tried to make a coherent movie out of it. Their success was limited, but at least it had a sort-of beginning, a confused middle, and a silly, half-of-an ending. Not having the resources to trim it to normal film length, they made it into a two-parter. Still a disaster, but a little money coming in to cover the completion guarantee.

Well, that's my hope, anyway. Anything to prevent me having to accept that someone actually went out and created this crock on purpose. That would be too much to bear.

CD

Practical Magic (1998)

Just don't inhale

[2/10 · 13 June 2006]

Well, I suppose we deserve this sort of thing, given all the male wish-fulfilment fantasy films going around - plot: unlikely guy scores (i.e. sex) with fahbulous fox, via a series of unlikely events. It's only fair to have a few similarly implausible numbers where women (albeit fahbulously foxy ones) score (i.e. marriage) with dreamy, strong-but-sensitive, protective guys with whom they can Live Happily Ever After. And even the dangerous bad man is Goran Visnjic, whose only flaw is that he wants desperately to marry Kidman's character - with menaces if necessary. Fair enough. The male equivalents focus on equally infeasible breasts, after all.

There are aspects that do make one think, though. I really don't believe this witch thing, for example, is healthy. A number of shows are currently pushing this particular fantasy. Perhaps it's no more dangerous than the male one in which Our Man routinely dodges surface-to-air missiles, but it seems that some gullible people really believe this stuff, and think they actually have magical abilities. Witch Power is the new Women's Intuition.

(I note with alarm another review here which speaks darkly about Belladonna's supposed 'dark' powers: lady, Belladonna is just atropine, a stimulant. It's just a chemical, like adrenalin, and nothing magical. Like most 'medicinal' plants, Deadly Nightshade is just trying to discourage animals from eating it, by dosing them with a substance that, inter alia, wrecks appetite.) I digress. In sum, this is not a very good film, but it's just wish fulfilment for those of a female persuasion and a certain age. Male viewers will probably have to derive what enjoyment they can from observing some very pretty and/or very talented actors, though in a far from ideal vehicle.

Flatliners (1990)

Pathetic ethic

[2/10 · 7 January 2006]

I don't much mind the factors that others here have objected to - acting, lighting and so forth. For the most part, these things were executed well enough to carry the film and put its points across. It's just a horror film, after all.

What bugged me were the points themselves. Because this is a deeply moralistic film, and its morality is deeply tacky. In fact it's actually fundamentalist Christian morality, and this is a fundamentalist Christian film. Look at the 'sins':

* Sutherland's character picked on a kid at school when he was a pre-teen, leading to his accidental death.

* Baldwin's character used masculine wiles, persuasion and good looks to shag quite a few women, some of whom he videotaped. Ooh, the swine! How unlucky for him that women are such passive, gormless creatures that they had no complicity in the matter.

* Roberts' character's dad came back from Vietnam a junkie, so ashamed to be caught shooting up that he kills himself. Yes, what a terrible sin! Why couldn't he have just become an alcoholic like all the others?

* and Bacon's character picked on another schoolkid. How awful! The fact that he was a child himself apparently counts for nought. Children, it seems, are divinely judged by adult criteria.

Well, maybe lots of people support this level of moral absolutism. It certainly seems to have gone unremarked in this movie's comments. Does everyone just buy this stuff? At least human laws treat children differently from adults, recognising that their ethical sense is partially-formed. This film has no such qualms, and I find that pretty objectionable. Ditto the notion that women are helpless, fluffy creatures before young men's evil lusts. Or that a Vietnam vet driven to drug addiction is so shameful that suicide is a valid option. Pathetic.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Mad Mel lets us into his world

[1/10 · 5 January 2006]

Other commentators have described the appalling tolchocking and lashings of ultraviolence, so there's no need for me to go over it again. I'm more interested in the mentality of the man who made this high-budget sequel to 'The Life of Brian'.

We hear that Mad Mel is deeply devout. That he belongs to a highly uncompromising sect who brook no deviance from the official texts. Which presumably means that everything shown in the film is note-perfect as far as Mel and his clonies read it. I assume that he, and they, all consider this particular segment of the Jesus story to be the most important part - the bit that most needs retelling in perfect realism.

So what on earth is wrong with these people? Admittedly the documentation on most of JC's reported 33 years is sketchy, but there are a number of highlights with cute story lines that they could have used. It might have been interesting to see, in a super-realistic setting, the impact of some of the famous miracles on those present.

(Or they could even have bitten the bullet, and shown that these magic events were actually just the result of hysterical re-telling of ordinary events: walking on water=wading out on a sandbar. After all, JC's central, important message was 'love your neighbour', with no codicil about '...and you'll be able to do magic.' The 'miracles' may have helped to sway the crowd, but either you believe that JC was divine or you don't. In either case, tricks that David Blaine could easily ace are pretty irrelevant.) Instead, Mel chose to show the part of the story where JC is tortured and murdered. Why is that important? Well, it's the blood sacrifice demanded, bizarrely, for the 'redemption of Original Sin'. Pretty gory and OT, but that's the way it's supposed to work, apparently. Was this point put across? Don't think so. In fact there seemed to be two messages in this film: a) humans are horrible; b) JC suffered terribly. Are these important or central to Xianity? News to me, if so.

I spent two weeks in Intensive Care, contorted in horrible agony. Did that help the side out at all? We have horrible people today, in great number, causing unspeakable suffering to zillions. So not much change there. And what's the point?

In all, I don't see how this film advances the cause of Mel's 'religion', unless they're really into pain and gore to the exclusion of the rest of the story. What's really alarming to me is the degree to which other Christians, who were hopefully less fixated on this part before, now have such realistic illustrative imagery left in their heads that they can hardly think of anything else.

CD

Snap Decision (2001 TV Movie)

More important than excellent

[7/10 · 23 November 2005]

It's a pity, really, that a film with a subject and context like this will probably never be a massive or significant hit. The subject matter is rather important, after all, and far more likely to impinge directly on average peoples' lives than international terrorists, asteroids or genetically-modified killer spiders.

Because this stuff really happens, and not just the once. Here in the UK, the miserable photo-counter twerp picked the wrong person to cry wolf about - she was a major, and pretty universally well-liked, TV presenter. The newspapers had the sense not to spin the story as if there was anything in the accusation, and the TV woman had the finances and personality to go after all the idiots involved with claws out. The photo developer lost a mass of custom, the twerp lost her job, and the police learned to be very careful about doing anything similar again.

Child pornography exists - or so we are told: I've not seen any - but there has to be a difference between kids playing in minimal clothing and actual porn. And even if there are people who would be turned on by those innocent images, that doesn't make the images themselves depraved. Nor should the onus be placed on the rest of us to avoid creating or viewing such images - unless we want to *make* them pornographic in the process. Lewdness is in the eye of the beholder. If someone regards a photograph of an unclothed prepubescent child as ipso facto pornographic, then the problem probably lies with that person. People with non-pathological sexual proclivities are not supposed to find naked children sexually charged, any more than the majority would see sexuality in the object of any other fetishist's fixation.

I thought the film did a good job of showing the key factors and events - especially the awfulness of a normal, law-abiding person having the System suddenly turn against them in such a terrible way, accusing them of being society's most abhorred form of pervert. Having heard of several similar events over recent years, it brought home the horrible reality rather well. I don't know if others find this easier to imagine: I don't have kids, and don't like them very much. The film showed well the horror of a situation in which the apparatus of the State stops helping you protect your loved ones, and begins protecting them from you - unjustly and badly.

CD

Angels in America (2003)

Gay Angst Masterpiece

[4/10 · 30 October 2005]

I watched it again, this time with the sour memory of how crazed and silly it all became.

And I did enjoy it in many places, but no amount of admiration - for the fragments of clever dialogue, the impressive acting and the occasional stunning scene - makes much impact on the primary thrust of this film as the all-time, greatest-ever, knock-all-the-others-out-of-the-park Gay Angst masterpiece.

There are no simple relationships in this story; no happy people, not even a bit. No-one speaks - they all declaim. Every action is capital-S Significant. Every interaction is fraught. You have to conclude either that everyone in America is on the brink of a stress-induced breakdown, or that they're over-dramatising a teensy bit.

And the trouble is, we've seen it before - in all the other gay angst movies that have ever been. How did these two notions become linked in a genre? And the other trouble is, not all of the motivations for that drama make sense - or at least, make it past one's suspension of disbelief: all this Biblical, even Revelatory, theatrical scariness - who cares? It's obvious that it helps to be American. You almost certainly have to be deeply religious in some way. Being gay no doubt clears other obstacles (like the female characters, who are either mothers, or angels, or jellyfish). I'm none of these. Do you get the over-dramatic bit for free with one of the others? Is it an emergent by-product of all of them? Or is it a new prerequisite altogether, that reduces still further the population who will truly appreciate this? I have no idea. I don't much care. I don't much care about this film, though I am concerned about those who do.

CD

Lost Highway (1997)

You'll never have me - but we can try

[10/10 · 8 October 2005]

Just watched this for the first time, and enjoyed it immensely. Some here have suggested that there's no 'real' story at all. I don't agree: Lynch doesn't work like that - no matter how bizarre and reticulated, there's a story there, all right, but you have to dig for it.

'Mulholland Drive' informs this film considerably. Having deconstructed that one to my satisfaction, I have a clearer view of how Lynch does things; how he shows us the elements, the language he uses, and what he leaves out for us to discover. So, then - *SPOILERS*, if I'm right:

As with MD, there's a big clue in the first few seconds: Fred is shown in close-up, looking thoroughly wrecked, smoking a cigarette unsteadily. There's a buzzing sound, and light sweeps across his face and the room. *The sound is one you'll become familiar with later, in the jailhouse.* Fred looks up, warily.

Major premise: I believe this scene shows Fred, in the last moments of his life, having his last cigarette before they come to take him to the chair. This may, in fact, be the only 'real' scene in the film, with everything else being Fred's distorted recollection, and the rest a psychotic break fantasy he constructs to escape from his grim situation.

As the door to his cell opens, Fred rejects the awfulness of reality, and transforms the buzz into the sound of his door intercom, and at this point we go into his personal flashback as the story continues.

The acting and dialogue is often stilted and unrealistic in this flashback. What we're seeing is Fred's recollection, which - as he himself says - is not necessarily the way it actually happened. His relationship with Renee is tense and unreal, with lots of suppressed rage. Cleverly, the undercurrents are conveyed mostly by the background sounds - listed in the credits as 'Ominous drones' - and these provide the significance that the dialogue alone would lack.

At the party scene several events take place: his suspicions about Renee and the impossibly sleazy - because he's seen through Fred's eyes - lounge-lizard Andy are effectively confirmed (for him). And he meets the 'Mystery Man', a devil-figure who tells Fred "You invited me (into your home). It is not my custom to go where I'm not wanted". I suspect that this figure is Fred's attempt to unload his guilt onto someone else: a 'devil who made him do it' - don't you have to invite the devil into your house? Perhaps he's the personification of Fred's insanity, or his jealousy. Or all of the above - all the dark influences in Fred's life and head.

As the flashback continues, we see the progression up to the point where he finally does murder Renee, horribly. Again he attempts to reject the reality by showing it all on video, but reality intrudes and a few seconds are shown of him 'really' sitting among the dismembered parts of his wife. His subsequent trial and sentencing are skipped over - they're a blur to Fred - and he winds up on Death Row.

Facing execution, and unable to tolerate his real state, Fred then creates a fantasy in which he escapes his fate by miraculously turning into another person - an innocent: young, enjoying a simple life, good at his simple job; with groovy, understanding parents and a pliable girlfriend.

The scenes around Fred's miraculous replacement are classic Lynch fantasy-made-real: the dialogue is ludicrous; the events comic-book. We see the same in the fantasy world of the central character in MD.

Although safe in this new fantastical environment, Fred/Peter is unable to resist being drawn back into danger, initially via his unlikely relationship with the - again comic-book - gangster boss, Mr. Eddy. This gangster character is a one-dimensional, violent crazy man who recalls the fantasy mafia types invented by the central character in MD to 'explain' her bad break.

Even so, Peter's life will remain peaceful if he avoids any dealings with Eddy outside of the grease-monkey relationship. But Fred's paranoia demands danger, and Peter begins an even less plausible and obviously perilous association with Fred's new incarnation of Renee: the pure-hearted damsel in distress that is Alice.

Except that, once again, Peter's life is contorted by Fred's paranoia, and Alice slowly metamorphoses into a spiteful, greedy psychotic who leads Peter further into danger.

(I looked for the 'Eye of the Duck' peripeteiac scene that Lynch always puts into his films, and one of the candidates is, I think, the moment where Alice points the gun at him after raiding 'Andy's' house. The tableau is held long enough to allow you to contemplate all that could happen if she shoots Peter and takes off. But that's not possible in a Fred/Peter fantasy, so we continue, with the point about her ruthlessness made.)

What else? The storyline continues as might be expected, with Alice now in total control. The cabin we've seen before just prior to Fred's metamorphosis. Alice disappears. The Mystery Man returns, and so does Mr. Eddy and Fred. All of this in a fight, during which the devil-figure hands him a knife that allows him to defeat Eddy/Dick Laurent (as we have discovered), and finally everything turns to crap as Fred heads back onto the highway with retribution on his tail. Things look hopeless, and the escape fantasy has brought him back to the point where he came in.

And then Fred begins another metamorphosis, which we never see completed, and the film ends. Is this another fantasy escape, or his death in the Chair?

I don't know how much of this is correct. Perhaps one day someone will tie Mr. Lynch to a rack, put electrodes on his nuts, and extract the line-by-line details of his wonderful creations. Until then we must wonder and worry. And marvel.

Hot Millions (1968)

Another small gem from Ustinov

[10/10 · 30 August 2005]

I can only echo the praise of the other reviews here. It's a delightful film with a feelgood factor that it achieves without crossing the line into soppy sentimentality. Naturally sweet - no added sugar.

One small point: it seems to me that the mild objections raised about Ustinov's character Pendelton being able to walk in and defeat the system security ignore the fact that Pendelton is clearly a genius/savant at this sort of thing. Yes, the film was pretty computer illiterate, but it did show Pendelton 'studying computers' at his flat, and I believe the implication was supposed to be that his gifts allowed him to simply engulf the whole subject, practically overnight.

There were a few odd moments when it appeared in some scenes that Gnatpole was trying to test Pendelton's knowledge and call his bluff. I'm not sure whether we were supposed to believe that Pendelton cunningly weaselled his way out of these situations, or whether he was actually knowledgeable enough to pass the tests - it was a little unclear.

Certainly he had to know enough to set up the dummy accounts. Presumably Wallach and Ustinov were relying on their own rather foggy notion of how computers worked in those days, and in order to understand in detail what they were getting at, it's necessary to know quite what their concept was. They knew there was something about 'procedures' which was important; they thought that the 'smart light' could actually control security, rather than just indicate its state; they thought that the (dumb) user terminal's features would strongly influence what could be done on the mainframe itself - though apart from things like graphics feature I don't see it meself.

Mostly, I think they tried to avoid the subject of actual computer operations as far as they could, and they did that rather well. Allowing them a bit of artistic license, I don't think their efforts had any flaws worthy of note.

CD

2010 (1984)

SF for children

[1/10 · 15 August 2005]

Should a helpful genie ever grant me a wish to have just one film obliterated forever from history and the memory of humankind, you may be sure that this appalling heap will be the one. '2010' serves as proof of whose movie '2001' was, because '2010' is definitely Clarke's, and it's a wretched thing indeed. Bad enough by itself, but a foul and shameful creation to seek to place itself alongside its predecessor.

Now, Arthur C. deserves his title as one of SF's Great Men. In his heyday he knocked out some very fine SF, based on some brilliant extrapolative ideas. Nor were they just SF plots: this is the man who invented communications satellites, for instance.

Good SF concepts, but mediocre execution. He's a Big Ideas man, and he doesn't fuss much with subtle plot-twists to get them across. If there's are no convenient pair of characters around to tell each other - and us - then he'll write lots of Dear Angela letters, and tell everything to her - and us.

So it is with this film: a series of set pieces to show off Clarke's clever notions: aerobraking, Europa's subsurface ocean, Io's vulcanism and rebooting HAL - interspersed with Dear Maggie VOs to explain it all and move the plot along.

Not only is it Clarke's film, but it's not really a sequel, except to a film that never existed: Clarke's film of 2001 - which, had it been made, would have been a very different animal indeed from Kubrick's magnificent opus. It would have been very like this feeble thing, and Bowman's last words would have been the tacky 'My God, it's full of stars!' The fact that no such film was ever made hasn't troubled the makers of this one - they've simply pretended that it was.

But, happily, Kubrick made 2001 - took Clarke's core idea, added humanity, wisdom and wonder, and made of it a thing of beauty. Who knows what monstrous hubris moved Hyams to believe he had the stuff to carry the work onward, or Clarke to believe that he could architect it. Clarke had previously stood as the co-creator of 2001, but this film reveals him as a mere contributor.

CD

Dogma (1999)

Fun, but with a dodgy underlying theme

[5/10 · 16 April 2005]

The difficult part of any fantasy or SF is getting the /context/ in which the story operates - without loads of tacky explanation, voiceovers, or 'It is a time of war…'-type crud in the opening credits. Which is why using a religious theme is such a slick device: everyone /knows/ the context, and the author gets a very wide stage in which all manner of weirdness is allowed to take place (dead people rising; guys with wings; supremely unpleasant villains, etc.) So I didn't have any problem with the religious context of 'Dogma', despite my being a militant, bible-burning, fundamentalist atheist (snarl, gnash). It set up the back-story neatly, allowing the audience to concentrate on the novel elements - sweary angels, black Jesus and all. The result was a very enjoyable and funny film.

My problem was with the fact that this was also a very devout film, from an author who obviously believes deeply in god, and whose occasional criticisms of Catholicism were entirely the viewpoint of someone who thinks the formal Church has strayed from the path of True Righteousness. It's his opinion that God could just as easily be a short, cute girly who does hand-stands for fun.

On the face of it this is a harmless enough notion, but in reality it's a pretty dangerous one, and ironically little different from the 'Buddy Jesus' concept: out with the forbidding, hairy, OT thunderer; in with the more sympathetic character, be it grinning muscleman or playful chicky. It's quite possible that this piece of rank goalpost-moving would have the effect desired by Cardinal Glick - drawing in new converts who would find the cuddlier deity more attractive. Even to an atheist, this is pretty tacky, and a helluva way to run a system promising ultimate truth.

In sum: nice film; shame about the morality.

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

One man's paranoia

[5/10 · 16 April 2005]

Here we go again, with another of Crichton's whiny attempts to terrify us with the scary technology we're building that he doesn't think we're ready for. It's a pity that such a twaddlish premise drives him so, because his movies were some good, didactic SF apart from this recurrent theme.

Many correspondents have complained about the slow pace, but in its day this was pretty necessary in order to get all the groovy hi-tech points across. Large chunks of the film were essentially documentary - and looked it. Although it all seems rather silly and boring now, at the time it was riveting stuff, honest, and not a bit slow.

The story is good, hard-science SF - until we run into Crichton's hang-up. A communication breakdown that almost exterminates the planet occurs because, we are told, a lickle piece of paper stopped a bell from dinging. See? See? That naughty technology will murder us all in our beds! Sure enough, those cold, unthinking machines proceed to screw things up all over the place, damn near blowing everyone up, and inflicting nasty burns on the sympathetic, brave, earnest medic who is so clearly Crichton's surrogate, and who just happens to be the saviour of mankind.

And of course it later turns out - though rather coyly presented - that the whole experiment-gone-wrong was the result of yet more scientific meddling.

At the time of this film and 'Terminal Man', Crichton was still putting some sort of plausible reasoning behind his dislike of technology. By the time he reached 'Westworld' he seems to have decided that plausibility was redundant, and the machines just start killing people because they're feeling grumpy or something.

Oh, well. An interesting film, and we're all still here - even Crichton.

The Village (2004)

Deeper into mediocrity

[1/10 · 12 March 2005]

I suppose that if I'd seen 'Sixth Sense' from the vantage point of knowing in advance the sort of films Shyamalan makes, I might have expected the twists, and been less amazed. It didn't happen with 'Unbreakable' though - again he kept me glued until the revelations, especially the totally unexpected last one.

When I came to 'The Village', though, I had all that foreknowledge, together - having seen 'Signs' - with the awareness that MKS is entirely capable of making utter dogs as well. 'Village' was not a real surprise, therefore, except in its sheer awfulness.

This is deeply bad, and you have to wonder: does MKS know it? Is he spending the time between these successively poorer works writhing internally, tortured by his inability to reclaim the magic? Pressured by the expectation of his peers and his public to produce more rabbits from his now apparently empty hat? It's clear that he's reaching for the same formula: 1-2-3 dazzling revelations in close succession that leave the audience giddy with delight and admiration for the way they've been manipulated and misled.

It's not working anymore, though: and the mutilations of plausibility that bringing these revelations to light entails have become so grievous that they go way past what is possible with mere suspension of disbelief, and now require either base intellectual negligence or hallucinogenic drugs. Sure - send the blind girl! Yes - lock the loony in the room with the costume under the floorboards! Fine - let's make the first guy she meets have access to antibiotics! Perfect - no-one will notice!

You should have quit while you were ahead, M, which was just after 'Unbreakable'. Maybe a decade cogitating in the wilderness would have allowed some cream to rise. The current helpings of watery skimmed milk are a waste of everyone's time and money.

CD