Pumpkin State

Save The Last Dance
You would like to think that MTV Films is possibly the worst idea ever. A branch of the ubiquitous channel devoted to producing movies. Its a recent development, and you would think that said movies would be terrible. And yet - the second film made by MTV Films was the cutting satire which was Election. And now we have Save The Last Dance, which is the most recent entry in that rarest of genres - the intelligent teen movie.
Perhaps intelligent is claiming a bit too much for Save The Last Dance (which is also the latest film of a much greater canon to be named after a sixties hit). But it is certainly a film which is not going to pander to the more vacuous aspects of its genre. For instance teen movies rarely start with an under credit sequence explaining away a characters mothers death in a graphically morbid fashion. Indeed the first twenty minutes of the film are relentlessly downbeat, and this certainly is not a feel-good all the time movie. When the good things happen you feel the characters earn them, and you are well aware that this is a world where good things do not necessarily happen. That is because it takes place in the real world. (Not that real world.)
The story is frighteningly simple. The excellent (as always) Julia Stiles plays Sara white-bread ballerina girl who gets turned down by Julliard and loses her mother on the same day. She goes to live with her estranged father in downtown Chicago where she ends up in a predominantly black school. After a few adjustment problems she starts dating one of the smartest kids in the School (Sean Michael Thomas) who helps her regain her confidence, come to terms with her mothers death and dance again. You could call it a Romeo And Julliard for the twenty first century except it has a happy ending, and the culture clash never really occurs. Of course the two worlds that Sara has contended with are very different but her character is not prejudiced. And when prejudice does rear its head, it never comes across as thrown in as a plot device. The film - whilst perhaps a touch melodramatic in its portrayal of this part of town - is at least honest about black culture.
The film is most interesting in the way it sets up certain clichés to knock them down again. It is almost underwritten with regards to sub-plots, there are sub-plots and some of them do get resolved but most of them just tick on to sort themselves out. This blossoming love is never going to solve the problems of the city, of society, and what it paints is a picture of two people who are able to escape. It is not a kind to those who a fated to repeat history. That said this is a story of growth for Sara, notably she appears to do little in return for her boyfriend except allow him to help her and give him a few choices. Equally her supposedly dysfunctional relationship is not all that dysfunctional at all, and she has little difficulty fitting in to the new school because she is funny, chatty and in no way prejudiced herself. The film allows you to expect such scenes, play them in your head, and then resolutely ignores them in favour of an almost reportage style. There is surprisingly little conflict in the film, when it occurs it does feel almost shoe-horned in. However the leads do have a genuine chemistry and Stiles is - as always - a joy to watch. Whilst it would be nice to watch her get meatier roles, it is nice to see that she she can turn even relatively generic fayre like this into something a cut above the rest.
Save The Last Dance is a genre film, and its genre (teen romance) is one which can offer little in the way of surprises. In many ways it follows its genre to the letter with regards to its plotting (even down to the almost failing, turned around to triumphant finale). The freedom the director has exploited in the film is in portraying young, black Americans. Not all gangsters, not all junkie, just as people leaving in a different way, in different circumstances. The film is not judgmental, and instead leaves the audience free to decide how much of what they see is real. It does not feel sanitised, so despite the unbelievable core of the film (as romances always are) there is something which grounds it. The dancing may be a bit flat, the hip-hop not quite as dazzling as I expected, but in all this is about as thought provoking as this genre can get. Which isn’t very, but its a start. (7)
IF THIS WAS A CAR CRASH: And pcture it if you will, the mall town jalopy of Footloose ramming into a Spkie Lee Joint - say Do the Right Thing. Don’t nobody mention Jungle Fever round here.

Scream 3
There is a scene in Scream 2 when resident movie geek Randy, survivor from first flick who is in-line to get it in the second, has a conversation about sequels which are better than the original. They managed to riff off a fair handful, Godfather, French Connection and The Empire Strikes back all get waved around. Indeed, in my opinion, Scream 2 was better than the original - which is not saying altogether that much, but a deconstructualist, post-modern slasher moves they were at least a bit of fun. All that said, no-one makes the point in Scream 3 about second sequels, or final parts of the trilogy ever being superior to the original. Which is just as well, because Scream 3 is a stinky piece of work.
Plot is laughable, and instantly shows the problem with a second sequel which still has too many original characters around. The supposedly clever aspect here is that the murders take place on set of the second sequel to Stab (the movie about the events of Scream featured in Scram 2 - if that makes sense). Our erstwhile and eminently slappable heroine Sydney (Neve Campbell)is in hiding somewhere in the backwoods of California - understandable when psycho killed in lousy masks keep making you day. The murders appear to be occurring to draw her out - which predictably they do. And then everyone gets to run around a large house complete with secret passages in what has to be one of the laziest endings to a movie ever. Does any good come out of it? Well, no.
To run a successful horror movie, slasher mystery (which the Scream films fundamentally are - the comedy is merely sprinkled on top) you need three things. Tension, characters you care enough in to regret their deaths and a plethora of suspects. Problem with this franchise is that there are three major returning characters (four if you count Cotton Weary from the other two who gets knocked off before the credits here). These major characters are the characters we care about, and hence it becomes quite clear that they will not die. They are also the interesting characters, who get a disproportionate amount of screentime, therefore not allowing us to ever discover if there is anything beneath the paper thin caricatures all the other roles are. The only other character who is even vaguely endearing is Parker Posey's actress - who is frankly the best thing in this movie and if she had survived instead of the swimming pool eyed Campbell or the happily married Arquette couple the film would have been a hell of a lot better.
Wes Craven knows how to do horror, but it is quite clear his heart is not in this one. Instead he is almost creating a Thin Man movie with all the schtick between Courtney Cox's Gail Weathers and David Arquette's Deputy Dewey. Never more than one note roles to start off with, these two have managed to turn the franchise into their own personal star turns - unfortunate when they are not strictly the films lead. That said, anything which will distract us from the god awful Neve Campbell and her sappy, sad eyes has got to be a good thing. It robs the movie of its proper heart, but it at least allows the film to be amusing in places. Cox has a good chemistry with both her husband Arquette and Parker Posey - but when a film depends on enlivening by cameos, you know its kicking its legs up and asking to be flushed down the toilet.
The Scream movies have been living on borrowed time for a long period. They always presented a knowing deconstruction of horror movie clichés, whilst at the same time trying to be effective horror movies. Unfortunately this third film does neither, the teeth so well bared in the second movie have well and truly fallen out. To restrict themselves to saying - the third movie is where it all goes shit - and then doing just that does not mean they have not made a shit movie. (4 - and three of those are for Parker Posey).
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Scream 1 and 2 meet Psycho 3 and Bambi - cos that's how scary it it.

Shadow Of The Vampire
Vampires eh? I’ve always wondered why there have never been any films about vampires. After all, the pervasity of the myth suggests that they are a perrenial fear for mankind - a beast which looks human but lives on the life force of other humans - and yet is frightningly attractive. Every culture has a form of the vampire myth, not to mention how developed the picture and mythology of the Eastern European vampire is. It really has remained a mystery to me why Hollywood has not jumped upon the myth and made a film about them. Finally - Shadow Of The Vampire appears to settle that.
There are well over one hundred vampire movies knocking about out there in English alone. They are so much Hollywood shorthand that post modern vampire movies (From Dust Til Dawn) exist now. Everyone knows the myth, and that there are a bunch of rules which you do, or don’t have to follow when using a vampire (skate through the heart is a must, sunlight aversion pretty usual but garlic and crosses are wholly optional). And so finally to Shadow Of The Vampire - a vampire & movies movie. The plot in itself is rather intriguing. What if Max Schrek - forever immortalised in Nosferatu as one of the most convincing vampires ever - what if he actually was a vampire. Nice idea eh?
Well, its a nice thought. Whether it can sustain an hour and a half is a little bit less clear. It is certainly something which would have made a good half hour Tales Of The Unexpected - with the vampiric identity revealed in the final reel. Here we know from the premise of the movie, so the possible tension and mystery inherent in the vampires identity is robbed from us. What we have left is an uneasy mixture of black comedy and obsession. The obsession belonging to John Malkovitch’s Werner Mernau - director of Nosferatu. Obsession literally as he is allowing a real vampire to add realism to an otherwise stagey production.
Problem is, anyone who has seen Nosferatu will admit that it is pretty stagey to start off with. What may have been frightening way back then looks hokey now. There is a nice idea that real people never seem more fake on screen can read into this. Willem Dafoe camps it up nicely as Count Orlok, and even emotes quite well the hell of being a vampire. The idea is that the evil in the film is Malkovitch’s, he is endangering lives for a mere film. Unfortunately the film is too much in love with his character, and a typical twitch Malkovitch performance it is too. So there is no-one to really identify with, and the conceit in the centre of the film makes the whole affair collapse upon itself. From the interesting first half hour we know we will have to wait until the finale to get any character movement or resolution. This makes the main body of what is still rather a short film actually rather dull.
Shadow Of The Vampire is a nice idea, but is in wholly the wrong form. It is not strictly a vampire movie, as the vampire itself is more pathetic than scary. It is not a biopic as Merneau certainly cannot be accused of actually hiring a real vampire for his movie. As a skewed metaphor for film-making it might juist survive - merely because film-making is rather dull and Shadow Of The Vampire is equally a bit on the dull side. The film certainly has its moments, but there are long moments in between where you could quite happily nick off and watch a half hour episode of the Twilight Zone. (4)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: It would be The Player driving straight at Dracula. At the last minute though there would be a swerve and the two would thoroughly miss each other, leaving us with a segment of one of those seventies portmanteau Hammer horror movies flopping around on the tarmac.

Shaft
I’ve read an awful lot of reviews for Shaft, most of which have been - truth be told - pretty mediocre. Yet I fear for my fellow reviewer. Not one of them picked up on the salient point, the cut diamond, cast iron opportunity that Shaft gives them. No-one said that they felt shafted after seeing the movie. I’m not going to say it either. I didn’t feel shafted - not because Shaft is a good film, but merely that I expected the mediocre and ended up pretty much getting it.
Shaft has a history. This is not a remake of the original, more a reinterpretation (their words) or a pretty standard maverick cop movie shoehorned to fit the Shaft name. In that way it shares more than a kinship with the eighties Biggles movie which took the WW1 flying ace and put him in a rather implausible time travel plot. Here Sam Jackson plays our all new Shaft as a cop, a cop with a reputation, and attitude and an impeccable wardrobe. Jackson is used as an iconic actor, much like Shaft is used as an iconic name. Between the two of them the film needs not do an awful lot to give Shaft any real in depth characterisation. Instead he just gets to wander round being more than a little bit stupid and trumping out lines like “It is my duty to serve your booty”.
The plot concerns Christian Bale little rich kid murderer. Bale is merely riffing on a very similar character to his impressive Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Here we see his fugitive go from the confidence of money to a degree of desperation. Whilst it is a minor part of the film, it is an impressive shift in character and surprisingly deep for what is a join the dots film. In comparison Jeffrey Wright’s Hispanic drug dealer Peoples Hernandez is watchable for completely opposite reasons. It is a tremendous piece of overacting, characature and thoroughly ridiculous. And yet he is menacing in a way wholly unlike any other screen baddie this year. Filling out our supporting roles are Toni Collete - who is annoyingly convincing as an annoying witness and Busta Rhymes as comedy sidekick with no depth and almost complete dominion over slapstick. Finally Vanessa Williams plays the straight cop to Shaft’s maverick cop, and whilst her role is relatively minor, hers is the character you mostly root for. Its not really my thing to describe the supporting cast in this kind of depth, but then that’s because Shaft is actually two movies sandwiched less than expertly together. One is actually rather an interesting crime movie, looking at how justice can be perverted whilst being an interesting look at how far an individual can stoop before they are corrupted.
That is not the film in the trailer, and its not the film the people who paid for this film were making. The other film is SHAFT. You know, Samuel L.Jackson, Richard Roundtree, violence, slam bang black man fighting sex machine stuf. Attitude. Guts. Standing up for the little man. All this is bollocks. Jackson’s Shaft is a bully. He uses violence because his brains don’t work. This has been the summer of the lousy action hero (X-Men showed a less than competent set of superheroes just scrape saving the day). In Shaft everythign bad that happens occurs as a direct result of Shaft’s arrogance or ignorance. The film just top this by adding an extraneous final scene which renders the rest of the film thoroughly pointless. Especially the deaths of the minor characters.
John Singleton has created a forgettable action movie in Shaft. Of course its great to hear Isaac Hayes’ theme tune played loud in a cinema, and Sam Jackson can do cool more than convincingly. Perhaps the problem is that the rest of the actors though are so concerned in not just being cool that we note how one dimensional Shaft is. Certainly I have never seen a film named after a character where I have wanted to see that character less. The scenes without Shaft, the scenes which pretend this film is serious are really rather good. The scenes with Shaft are at a base level entertaining, but you really don’t care about him. Perhaps they should have remade Cleopatra Jones instead with Vanessa Williams, it probably would have worked better. By removing all that made the original Shaft concept work in the first place and doing a black Dirty Harry we get a film which passes the time, but is in no means great. (5)
IF THIS FILM WAS A CAR CRASH: Well, how about the original Shaft, dollops of Dirty Harry mixed up with Dirty Harry and any half decent South American drugs movie.

Show Me Love
(Fucking Åmål)
Oh, to be the man who’s head upon it falls to re-title films. In the last week we have seen the pointless renaming of Reindeer Games to the bland Deception, and now here we have a fine Swedish movie retitled to something which could be an American teen movie name. Of course there would possibly been a few problems with posters for a film called Fucking Åmål, but perhaps it might have brought it more attention. It came out a few months ago, and a friend went to see and gave it a hearty recommendation. So I went and saw it with a lousy print at the NFT, but even through the scratches on the film it was clear that this was something special.
As noted in my Une Liason Pornographique review, I am a hopeless romantic. And Fucking Åmål is the most traditional romance to be released in a long time, except perhaps for the romance being a lesbian one. What initially put me off this film was the fact that it appeared to be yet another gay coming of age movie. Not that there is anything wrong with that well plumbed genre, but they are often a touch too self celebratory, championing difference whilst ignoring the reality and difficulty of many of these scenarios. Fucking Åmål however is not really in the same genre. Certainly there is the relationship and romance at the heart of the tale, but it is much more interested in the minutia of being a teenager and the related horrors.
Our two main protagonists are very different - though acted respectively with fantastic naturalism. Elin (Alexandra Dahlstrom), the popular girl who has a bit of a reputation and is mind-numbingly bored with the town Åmål. Agnes (Rebecca Liljeberg) is only friends with the disabled girl in school, and does not really like her that much. Elin is vain, conceited but surprisingly good hearted. Agnes is an outsider, as demarked by her Morrissey posters and bedroom where she lives with loud music booming. Agnes is in love with Elin, and due to a bet Elin unwittingly plays into her fantasies by kissing her. What follows is the carbon copy plot of a Mills and Boon, with the exception being the sex of the protagonists. Elin spends much of the rest of the film denying her attraction, while Agnes becomes more alienated and angry. It all culminates in a perfectly frames scene where the pair finally declare their feelings, and Elin gets to come out of the closet. Literally: in this case it is a water closet.
So if the plot is nothing new, what is so affecting about Fucking Åmål? The writer/director Lukas Moodysson has shot the film on reverse film stock, giving it a grainy documentary feel. And the inconsequential acts which the many featured teens carry out ring very true. Åmål is the same kind of nowhere town that everyone feels they grow up in, and the illicit alcohol drinking, the copping off and pointless hanging around as you wait for something, anything to happen. Couple this with the two lead characters covering the two most interesting demographics and you will probably have eighty percvent of the audience identifying with them. Agnes is the unpopular weirdo, sensitive and misunderstood - there is nothing all that new about this character. However Elin is much more interesting. Popular, bored and herself a touch at odds with the necessity to be popular. Deep down a rather decent, nice person who is slowly trying to escape the confines of what others think she is.
The cast of Fucking Åmål were mainly non-professional actors, and hence they act their age better than the usual bunch of Hollywood twenty-five year old teen actors. Whilst they may not be professional, the lines they deliver have a finely wrought hand behind them. There are naturalistic conversations in this film which reach right into the heart of the matter, and the heart of the matter is why is it sound miserable being a teenager. Moodysson uses music to the right effect, the over dramatic strings when Agnes toys with suicide, to the angry indie with she buries herself in. Whilst this is a story about teenagers, and tedium there is always something to look at. The best aspect of the film though is the way it treats what may be on the surface the theme of the film (the lesbian romance) as something which is not the point. This is a romance, not a lesbian romance: and the best points it can make are by teating the subject as if it is not worth commenting about. That does not mean that the film does not touch on homophobic prejudice, merely that the film is not trying to tell the audience not to be homophobic. It assumes it, which is a nice way to be treated as an audience.
Fucking Åmål is the teen movie of the year, and its just a great pity that most teens won’t get to see it. Perhaps they don’t want to see the hell of being a teenager enacted on the screen, but it did bring back more than a few memories for me (not all bad). Compared to Hollywood teen movies it is a different world, and with its documentary stylings it is stabbing at something a bit closer to reality. Last year I quite happily stated that 10 Things I Hate About You was one of the best films of the year, and despite the difference in the movies they also have a connection. Agnes has a Romeo and Juliet poster on her wall, another hint that there is something more universal going on in the romantic subplot of the movie. Luckily though this one does not end in tragedy - and has a feel good ending to match 10 Things (an odd ending actually, there is an extraneous scene wholly about chocolate milk which both undermines the sweeping musical end and adds an odd sort of permanence to the relationship). Romance of the year so far, teen movie of the year and movie containing the word Fucking in its title of the year without a doubt. (10)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Beautiful Thing hits 10 Things I Hate About You with a Dogme production. Its all good though.

A Simple Plan
The Camden Odeon is a wonderful joint. Five screens, a couple of them really good sized. Good student prices (this is North London after all - home to hideous price hikes). Near to a couple of good, and a couple of awful pubs, and hey - this is swinging Camden we're talking about. Or at least stinking Camden - where you get to recognise the tramp outside the cinema. But the best thing about the Camden Odeon is its booking policy. So far this year I have seen Pecker, Happiness, Best Laid Plans, Payback and Pleasantville here, some of them on screens undreamt of by their creators. It does not quite match up to my favourite London cinema (The Plaza) but it certainly has a more interesting booking policy. If it weren't for the fact that they gutted the shell of the Parkway which used to live there in all its Art Deco glory, it might even have made it to first.
So it was a hot day in London, a few beers, a nice Mediterranean meal with Julie - and then a good flick. What better recipe for an evening? Especially when the flick is this good. A Simple Plan is the purist piece of cinema I have seen in a long time. No ginnicks, no crazy camera angles, no flashy tour de force acting. Just solid writing, and directing. You can't single any one thing out here, and say it was fantastic. It was all good - to a high degree. What greater praise can you give a film, than that it is a consumate piece of film-making.
What makes this all the more remarkable is that this is a Sam Raimi film. Don't get me wrong, I really like Raimi's stuff - Evil Dead 2 is as gloriously funny as a horror film gets, but you could never call him restrained. This is the man who invented Xena - Warrior Princess fer'chrissakes. The man who pioneered the Bullet-Cam, so we could see right through Leonardo Di Caprio's head in The Quick And The Dead. The man who, lest we forget, got Bruce campbell to saw off his own arm and attach a chainsaw to the stump. Restrained is surely not in his vocabulary. Here, its as if someone challenged him to make a straight film, and in doing so he reminds us how few straight - honest to God simple films there are out there. We're so hung up on gimmicks, on flashy visuals, that we are missing the heart of the cinema experience. Good stories, well told.
The good story? Well we've been here before, three mates find a lot of money in a crahed plane. Our three guys are the family man, and the only one with a job Hank (Paxton), his slow brother Jacob (Thornton) and Jacob's boorish friend Lou. They take the money, but agree not to spend it until the heat has worn off. The rest is the usual side taking and back biting and ending up in tragic consequences that movies like this always end with. So far so Shallow Grave, Treasure of The Sierre Madre and shed loads of other films. You'd think Raimi would load it up somewhere along the line with a gimmick, a twist. But no. He lets the characters breathe, act naturally, get their jealousies out and just get sucked in by the morality play that is unravelling. His actors do this beautifully, yet you get the feeling that this is because they are being directed so well.
A Simple Plan may be directed in this elegant fashion because the script is so good. By that I don't mean the dialogue sparkles, more that it has the correct naturalistic feel. It does not sound like words being put in their mouths, just as none of the action seems forced. The script was adapted by Scott B.Smith from his own novel, which is usually the kiss of death, novellist usually not willing to throw chunks out of their novel. Here there is not that problem, there is rarely even the sense that elements have been left out. Smith his clever noted the difference in mediums and paced his screenplay perfectly. Perhaps this explains Raimi's restraint, with an excellent script anything thrown into the mix could ruin it.
A Simple Plan is a morality play, yet it does not force any particular message down our throats. It is a film about tragedy, and the way it can be disguised as luck. The ending creaps up on you, and much like in Best Laid Plans, there is a twist. Unlike that film, we are not looking for a twist - so when it happens we don't expect it. Yet like everything else in this film, it is natural, everyone is always in character and the developments come out of an extraordinary situation. Indeed, Raimi has produced a film about the ordinary, the mundane, the dull, the everyman - and made it remarkable. Many comparisons have been made between A Simple Plan and Fargo - the snowy setting and not least the close friendship between Raimi and the Coen Brothers. Whilst Fargo slyly, and affectionately, took the fun out of its small town people, A Simple Plan treats them with dignity. A dignity they do not often deserve, but a dignity which is not judgmental. Perhaps its old fashioned, and perhaps it is outdated but that's as good a cinematic technique you'll see these days. You don't really need bullets going through people's heads for films to work.(9)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Fargo (for the snow) and Treasure Of The Sierre Madre (for the plot) in a simple, but perfectly executed, head on smash.

The 6th Day
We are facing the twilight of the gods. Or at least witnessing the final death throes of the greatest actor of a generations appeal starting to wane. What happens when the biggest box office star suddenly loses his lustre? Well, I’ll tell you what happens - he starts to raid his own back catalogue - desperately looking for that one hit which might propel him back into the top flight. Ladies and gentlemen - I give you the end of Arnie.
No bad thing - you might say. We’ve suffered this Austrian bodybuilder for far too long that the incredulity with which we greeted his original starring roles has turned to the incredulity that we put up with him. In The 6th Day Schwartzenegger tries to emulate the success of the field and films which spawned him - the techno-thriller. This frankly ludicrous tale of clones, a vaguely familiar future world and - of course - ultra-violence is nothing more than an attempt to try and do Total Recall again, just on the cheap. The ideas contained within are cheap too, replacing Total Recall’s vaguely clever mind games with a foolishly simple twist and some good old fashioned double take photography.
The plot - if you will - concerns a vaguely Luddite pilot Arnie, who gets accidentally cloned and rocks up home with a frankly creepy doll to see his clone in with his family. This is the future - sooner than you think, infact even sooner considering that everything is the same except in three areas. The aforementioned cloning, doll technology appears to have leapt forward in bounds and remote control “kewl” helicopter airplanes - you know for the stunts. Anyway, Arnie is then hunted down because you can’t have two clones on the go - and before you can say “even Eraser was better than this” its two Arnie’s against the evil cloning man. And his army of evil clones which amusingly keep dying. And finally the end of level boss which is evil cloning man cloned badly.
Good science fiction asks us quite penetrating questions about ourselves. For all its explosions and bone crunching fights Total Recall was certainly thought provoking. The 6th Day on the other hand raises the debate on cloning to a level which existed from the moment the idea was posited. To say it is unsophisticated is an understatement. Roger Spottiswoode - a journeyman director at the best of times - tries to deaden any intelligence which might pop up in the film with pointless jump cut transitions - but its the script which really stinks to high heaven. Your audience may not be the smartest bunch of people in the world, but even they know you can’t clone an adult in twenty minutes. When the twelve year old kids who have snuck in a guffawing at the poor technology (record someone’s entire personality & memory by flashing a light in their eyes) you know it is lame. The films attempts at social commentary are ten years out of date at best, and the attempts at Verhoven style satire are just embarrassing. Luckily Arnie carries most of the blame playing yet another of his family man, everyman, commando types - and the acting in the twin Arnie scenes is excruciating.
The 6th Day is a rather pedestrian thriller in science fiction clothing. The clothing, like Arnie’s outsized muscles in the 21st century, don’t fit. A nice attempt to at least go back and do what he was best known for, but the Schwartzenneger persona is outdated now. He is also starting to look a bit old. Clones, like horror movies set on water, never set the box office alight and this floundered a touch. But it is testament to a man whose star is fading that the other talent involved (from writier to director) is second rate. The 6th Day refers to the week God took to make the Earth. If we make a leap of faith and do a God / Schwartzenegger parallel then it is quite obvious what Arnie should do after The 6th Day. He should rest. (3)
It tries soooo hard to be The Matrix hitting Total Recall. It turns out to be Gattaca nudging The Prince & The Pauper.

The Sixth Sense
I've probably already said too much. The Sixth Sense is an impossible film to review in anything but a nebulous way. You cannot describe the plot, because that would spoil the film. It is rather difficult to describe the acting without mentioning part of the plot. I could mention the good use of lighting, but even in some ways that would illucidate more than I would like. You see, I liked the Sixth Sense a lot, but it was spoiled for me. Not by anyone actually coming up and telling me what happens but merely by the trailer and the poster. And I cannot even describe the way it was spoiled without potentially spoiling it for someone else. I do not want to reduce your cinematic enjoyment, because this is a humdinger of a movie, and one which nicely pitched to the widest audience possible.
Who am I fooling though. Its not as if anyone uses this site as their number one source of movie information. You have probably seen it and want to know what I think of it. Whether I guessed - not that there is anything to guess. Well I've said it now. The one thing that spoils films with twists, almost as much as knowledge of the actual twist itself, is the knowledge that a twist will be there. The audience waiting for a twist is obviously playing plot detective, and therefore not watching the film in itself. It is looking for clues, not following the action, so it can say it guessed first. As I said, I had guessed - correctly - before I went in so I was looking for refutation, or even an additional twist. This was entertainment within itself, but I saw a completely different film to Michelle, who saw it with me. Part of the beauty of the Sixth Sense though is that both films work.
The best film with a twist of the nineties has hithertoo been The Usual Suspects. Now I am firmly of the opinion that The Usual Suspects does not work on the second viewing, and since it relies on a fantasy world created by Kevin Spacey's character there is very little consistency with what we see to what actually happens. Indeed it is high fantasy - after all in real life you'd never get away with Pete Postlethwaite playing a Pakistani called Kobayashi. Anyhow, The Sixth Sense is internally consistent, and more importantly consistent without radically changing any of the characters. Often, most usually in crime thrillers, the twist rests on our actors behaving in a way contrary to how the character was originally set up. It doesn't happen here, and therefore you come out without feeling in any way cheated.
The Sixth Sense is a triumph of popular cinema. It uses various tricks of the trade to occasionally mislead, but in the end it really can look you in the eye, shrug its shoulder and say "what - I didn't lie". Centre to this success is a couple of excellent performances from Bruce Willis and the child Haley Joel Osment who have a genuine chemistry who do distract your attention to what otherwise might seem odd. I have always rated Willis as an actor as well as a star, and here he allows both aspects to pay off. The star aspect makes him watchable, and likeable - whereas he acts his socks off to see past his original persona and see the wounds beneath. But Haley, the child, is magnificent and again being introverted and frightened, whilst the development seems natural to the films final denoument. Whilst the women in the film are necessarily (due to the plot) relegated, they too turn in fine performances - Toni Collette managing a much better American accent than in Clockwatchers.
What makes the Sixth Sense work is a finely tuned sense of plotting. The script leaves nothing to chance, and nothing up in the air eithr. All the questions you ask walking out are answered in the film somewhere, which is why it is a film which I could whole-heartedly recomend seeing twice. Its made shed loads of money, and for nothing more than having a good plot, good script and fine acting. Yep, its a ghost story, and like most ghost stories they are not so much frightening but sad, but that a film like this can raise so much emotion from doing - on the face of it - so little is a joy to behold. (9)
IF THIS FILM WAS A CAR CRASH: Lets say The Usual Suspects meets the Exorcist. Its not really like either of these flicks but, hey I don't want to spoil it for you.

Sleepy Hollow
It is a cold and portentous night in Sleepy Holloway. Winds buffet up and down the lonely track that is the Seven Sisters Road and there are foul deeds afoot. Arsenal have just played one of the dullest games of football you are likely to see on national television, and the foxes are still baying for blood. Noxious gases and smells emanate from the gothic old building, mainly that of that really chemically bright yellow cheese substitute they pour on the Nachos. And I and my intrepid companion are here to see the new Tim Burton movie, a film of Washington Irvine's Halloween staple, Sleepy Hollow.
The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow is one of those piece of storytelling which has, at least in America, been assimilated into the group mind. Of the people who know the story probably less than one percent have actually read it, which has allowed a number of versions to proliferate. Whilst it has not quite got to the perversions of the original created in the name of Frankenstein and Dracula, there is at least a sense that when you see a new version, you don't quite know what you will get. The biggest indicator of what we will get here is the fact that Tim Burton is directing.
Well, Burton turns in a pretty straight effort, for him. It was stated that this was his homage to the British Hammer Horror films, and whilst not as creaky as many of the (later) Hammer films, he has conjoured up a similar atmosphere. The visuals are sumptuously creepy, all shades of gray and blue with all the characters having the palest of pale skin tones. For this last point Burton is helped immeasurably by his casting, whilst Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp may feel it is the least attribute they bring to a project there is no denying they have both marked out a good career in playing milky white skinned characters. Ricci has now blossomed (the unkind may say ballooned) into a proper - if young - leading lady and fills her role amply here. That said, this is very much another showcase for Depp, the supporting characters are well played by the British establishment but are little but window dressing alongside the effects of the horsemen and Depp's twitchily comic performance.
Depp's Ichabod Crane is a pompous, opinionated coward of a man and is played with all the detachment that is Depp's specialty. Johnny Depp rarely plays characters that are instantly attractive, there is a lack of natural charisma in most of his performances. Instead he does it the hard way, which is eventually more rewarding. We sympathise with Crane because he represents our scientific age, where he cannot believe in ghosts we do not either. It is only the incontrovertible proof of his own eyes which convinces him of the existence of the Headless Horseman. He then takes this proof further, rediscovering a childhood of anti-magical repression (these dreamlike sequences add little to the film are are Burton's most obvious and less required addition to the tale). Depp is thoroughly convincing and also having yet again a great deal of fun here, Burton always brings this aspect out of him and it is odd to see such a lover of comedy to be so afraid to play comedy as anything but an adjunct to any character he plays.
Of course, any comedy Depp brings to the film, is sharply contrasted with the moments of horror. The headless horseman is a fine creation, an eighteenth century vision of the Terminator with its relentless pursuit of its mysterious goal. Its identity when played with a head on is yet another marvelous piece of casting, in a film which is filled with pleasurable cameo's (Martin Landau as the first victim, Christopher Lee as the judge). While this is a film of atmosphere rather than effects, this main effect is really rather well done - which is why it's a pity that Burton could not resist a few eye-poppingly garish comic effects in other moments. Burton is a stylist with a very distinct sense of humour, which unfortunately is often his downfall in trying to create a true tonal style to his film. That said, this is a minor quibble in a film which does almost everything else right, not least its last twenty minutes which is as good a relentless chase scene you'll see possibly this decade (certainly sets the level).
Tim Burton always makes interesting films, and films which endear themselves to an audience too. Whilst it may appear a bit obvious for him to plough yet again the furrow of darkness and Halloween type ghost tales, he has created here a sumptuous piece of entertainment. It does not really say anything, but it does get the adrenaline racing and present you with a fine and stylish evening out. His version of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow adds little to the myth, except the stylings of a Hammer Horror movie, but is a fine retelling and is a damn sight better than that Disney version. Sleepy Holloway has not seen its like for a while. (8)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Disney's Sleepy Hollow meets the darker gothic overtones and scenery of Hammers The Witchfinder General

Snatch
Very funny Guy, now what’s the movie called again. No really? We Brits are so repressed (I get the feeling that no-one else in the world is going to get the titular ladies front bottom joke which has been getting us Brit boy’s chuckling for nigh on weeks). So what’s Guy Ritchie’s second joke then? Oh, that he has returned to the scene of his previous crime and knocked out another Brit gangster flick. Nice to see, not that we have not had a number of those round here recently. And Vinnie Jones is in it too. For that you get to father Madonna’s child.
No review of Snatch is complete without a two years later retrospective look at Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. And to be brutally fair, Lock, Stock is no longer held in the regard it was - much the fault of the Rancid Aluminium’s and Love, Honour and Obeys of this world. But take my word for it what I say that I was not blown away (geddit) by Ritchie’s first movie. I was vaguely pleased that a gritty British heist comedy suddenly existed, but I did think it could be better. Too many characters, an ambivalent attitude towards death and not enough good jokes to make it actually funny. That said Ritchie showed promise, which in the British movie industry is something in itself. Yet for Snatch he has not really strayed too far from his original patch.
Snatch is another lowlife London movie, even if its canvas is broadened by a more international cast and the odd foreign setting. In many ways, with its complex plotting and huge, predominantly male cast, Ritchie is just making a Lock, Stock redux. So under these not very ambitious circumstances the most we can hope for is that he does a better job than Lock Stock. I think he does, but it is still a pretty close run thing. More importantly he will have a better chance of testing the international waters by the mere fact that Brad Pitt is in his cast. His story is equally impenetrable, with sympathy and characterisation coming a poor third to set pieces and plot development. This is unsurprising since the plot is so complex, and there are still too many characters.
Snatch is the story of a diamond, and how it is pursued by various factions of the London, and global, underworld. It attempts to show us two stories actually, that of the diamond and that of an illegal boxing match and the gypsy fighter One Punch Mickey (Pitt - central to the plot but not actually given all that much screen time). The two plots are obviously more than intertwined - and this is a flaw - but at least the two plots are interesting. That the majority of characters, including unfortunately our narrator - Turkish - are uninteresting and one dimensional at best weaken the film critically. That said, Ritchie drives his plot along like a powerhouse, he sprinkles the film with set pieces which further the plot and draws out a number of nice performances - generally from the older members of his cast. Whilst the film is always interesting, there is little emotional investment, and you will probably leave the cinema not really caring about the outcome.
Odd combination then, that of watchability and complete emotional detachment. This means the film lacks some of the humour of Lock, Stock - perhaps striving to be a touch more honest about what it is to be a gangster (or indeed a gypsy). Whilst Lock, Stock was flippantly violent, Snatch is possibly less graphically violent but shows the effect of fear. Perhaps that is because its bad guys are cast better, or because Ritchie uses the power of suggestion more than extremely graphic violence. There is blood, there is gunplay but it does not seem excessive. Instead there is something much nastier, a proper villain who is feared by all of these other bad guys.
Ritchie has tamed down some of his visual excesses, whilst using a few techniques to good effect in the fight scenes. The opening introductory character montage seems gratuitously clever, but is probably worth doing merely because there are so many characters. Equally I cannot decide if the equation of passing out with going underwater is clever or obvious. And Ritchie’s own script wavers from very funny sharp dialogue, to pointless sweary plot exposition. But yet again, even in this there is much to admire in the film.
Snatch is not a great step up from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - but its is a step up nevertheless. Ritchie is maturing as a film-maker, and as an author. Whilst it is true that this film will not trouble anyone’s emotions, it is still rather enjoyable in a way wholly unlike any other film I have seen this year. Its a shaggy dog story, a caper movie and it does use every second of it running time to attempt to entertain. That he draws a good performance out of the starry members of his cast also bodes well, that some of his home grown talent lets him down a bit is a pity. Snatch is worth seeing, and you probably will enjoy it. Whether or not you will care though is a wholly different matter. (7)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels hit Fight Club and - in moments - Scum

The Sound Of Music
Cinema is a passion for me. Namely them places where you see those big screen stories played out. I'm not a huge video fan, there is something inherently wrong about seeing a film on television to me. Its the going out, the plonking of your arse on a chair that's been used thousands of times before (I don't go to porn cinema's before you start getting the wrong idea here). In the cinema, the film gets a chance, at home the phone rings, your flatmate whinges about wanting to watch Eastenders and any ambience that was ever attempted is lost. But perhaps the strangest thing is the communal sense of seeing something. What exists in all performance art forms, the audience all gazes on in hushed silence. And tyhe hushed thing is very important, I don't want some fucker trapping his way through Payback while I'm desperately trying to get into the plot (well, maybe Payback was a bad example).
Of course, there are exceptions. At the moment, for a few showings only, the Prince Charles in Leicester Square is running Karaoke "Sound Of Music" In all its big screen glory we get Julie Andrews running up that hill, opening that mouth of hers and the immortal lines are not only sung, but are subtitled for us - th'audience. And we are encouraged, nay expected, to sing along.
Kitsch - I know. But what they hey, this is entertainment too. Perhaps an about face on what I would normally say about the movie going experience, but there is a time when you just want to bellow at the screen. To sing your lungs out, to laugh at the absurd lyrics to the lonely Goatherd and to hiss the Nazi's. Also everyone can be a comedian, as befits moments such as
BARONESS: "Where is Maria going"
AUDIENCE MEMBER: "She's off down the gazebo with an eighty piece orchestra"
Now, this is of course very funny. And the quality of gags, of singing and of general audience bonhomie was fantastic. Now, unsurprisingly, this was a very gay event, and homophobes would have been scared out of their skin. But for the selection of the movie, with its non-stop show stoppers was rather inspired. And this is where I stop talking about the event - and have a brief peel at the movie itself. Of course, I've seen the Sound Of Music before, as a kid (wedding of Charles and Di). We also had the album, off of which I loved the refreshingly coy Sixteen GoinG On Seventeen, and reveled to the now revealed as ridiculous Lonely Goatherd. The film where they trusted Julie Andrews to act, and to be fair she does a grand job. It looks sumptuous, the Austrian surroundings are filmed with real love and the production numbers kick out with admirable verve.
But its too long. It goes on forever. This was underlined by the inclusion of the original theatrical interlude which underlines that the last hour has no good tunes in it. That said, the ending is rushed, when the Nazi's chase singing sensations the Von Trap Family out of Salzburg (if had been the Osmonds, I wouldn't have minded). All you get in the second half is reprises of the first half goodies, plus that really dull song Plummer and Andrews sing about their love for each other. It is odd, because the whole balance of the film is thrown out of whack, and even in an event like ours, things fell a bit flat. We all staggered out for the night bus, and it felt like it was 4 in the morning (which - to be fair - it was).
The Sound Of Music is a good musical, hit per song ratio. It is, however, too long and therefore its pacing feels wrong. The highs from the early songs are replaced by the interminable wait for the damn thing to end. That said, the whole event was a success, and i would urge the Prince Charles to continue this experiment, perhaps with a musical such as Grease which is indelible on a slightly younger audience. That said, there is nothing better than seing some of Rodgers and Hammersteins most heinous lyrics exposed to the world. Ah, that Maria "she could throw a whirling dirvish out of whirl"... (7)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Top Of The Pops meets Cinderella for admittedly quite a long time, with some sort of Great Escape motif thrown in.

South Park : Bigger, Longer and Uncut
You would expect me to be a bit of a snob on the front of film spin offs of television shows. Given some of my other odd predilictations, vis a vis watching films in cinema and the odd bobbins conversation on the purity of cinema. But actually, like the contrary bugger I am, I have rather a soft spot for them. Especially the movie spin-offs of British sit-coms of the seventies. (They all had the same plot, take your well worn characters, remove them from the sit that provided the com, and watch it fall flat on its arse. Of especially good value here is Holiday On The Buses and the Are You Being Served movie set in Torremelinos). Couple this with a generous appreciation of South Park itself, I was rather looking forward to this. To the length of dragging along two people who don't like South Park (Kate and John) plus a non-cinema going fan (flatmate Justin).
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut - yet another colon movie title - is a lot of fun. For a lot of reasons, mainly that it does not really try to do what the television series does. This way it remains fresh for seasoned viewers as well as relative newcomers. The key to its difference, and the key to it sustaining its extended length - is that it is a musical. And we really haven't seen a big, full production, bursting into song for no good reason, musical for a long time - if you discount the insipid Disney fayre churned up every year. And trust me, South Park is no Disney.
The art of the comic song is a tricky one to master. A song gives you a degree of leeway to pace your gags, half the time just making the words rhyme are funny enough. And certainly in some of the framing songs the effort is not put into making you laugh, but in crafting proper musical style show tunes. These are toe tappers and there are two genuine show stoppers in here (the previously seen, but much improved and expanded "Kyle's Mom Is A Bitch" and the insanely catchy "Uncle Fucker"). So as a musical it works rather well. That Parker and Stone like musicals is no secret - their first effort in this field was the admittedly risible Cannibal: The Musical. So its got some good tunes, and in between the tunes there are some pretty good gags, and an awful lot of swearing.
The beauty of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, is that the whole plot is a commentary on itself. Taking what is essentially a rude, foul mouthed, scatological cartoon and making it talk about censorship of a film exactly like itself allows the film to have a serious importance it otherwise would have lacked. Its a clever trick, which allows the creators to claim a degree of weight to what is essentially a one trick pony (which they had admittedly upped to two tricks with the songs). The swearing is prodigious and imaginatively done, and creates exactly the right atmosphere for the obvious satire on America where swearing will cause a film to be banned, but excessive violence is fine. The escalation here into war with Canada allows an additional satire on war mongering, violence and racism. It is all rather more sophisticated than it looks.
Of course, not everything here works, but enough is thrown at the screen to keep you laughing pretty constantly. Indeed its script is an awful lot sharper than much of the series, and all this without relying on some of the weird scatology of the television product (with the exception of the hell subplot - which to be fair is the weakest part of the film). The film almost falls for too much in the way of sentimentality near the end, but walks a pretty fine line to avoid overtly moralising when the moral of the tale is so fucking obvious.
This is a joyous comedy celebrating all that is great about swearing and profanity, whilst criticising any who would dare to attack it for that reason. Merely for this clever slight of hand this would be an interesting movie. That it is also funny without relying excessively on repetition of in jokes, and that it is an honest to God musical in this day and age makes this well worth seeing. That it doesn't all work is unsurprising, what is surprising is that even when its in its slower passages, it never annoys - unlike the television series its based on. If there is any justice there will be a Oscar in this for best original score or best original song (mind you I won't be holding my breath). Because if you do go see it, you'll be singing "Uncle Fucker" for weeks to come…(8)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Beavis And Butthead Do America hits, I don't know, maybe Bulworth and The King And I. Did they ever make a movie of Candide?

Spy Kids
Whatever happened to the Childrens Film Foundation. I suppose what happened to the British Film Industry in the eighties - started to be seen as an industry so it should look after itself. That and they let Keith Chegwin in far too many of their films. They probably also noticed that it was not actually leading kids into either appreciating good cinema (Robin Hood Jr?) or equipping them for a career in film. When was the last time you heard someone on This Is Your Life talking about their Children Film Foundation years - except Keith Chegwin. In that respect the CFF was like Schoolboy football - a bunch of kids you will never hear of in ten years time. That said - this idea that kids were making films for other kids does have a germ of intelligence in it. Who better to judge the tastes of the kids crowd than other kids.
Or - as might be the case - Robert Rodriguez. Yes I know that on paper that looks ridiculous, Robert Rodriguez hasn’t made a film which has clocked in under a eighteen certificate yet, and here he is directing a U kids film. Directing, writing, editing, doing some music and special effects. And it stars a couple of not particularly cute kids. It is also easily his best film. Why? As mentioned about the idea of the CFF was for kids to make kids films. Robert Rodriguex is making a film for a kid - himself as a kid. This kind of experience, of actually having a rich fantasy life as a child - is something which unfortunately the large gangs of scriptwriters of most Hollywood kids movies seem to have beaten out of them. By doing everything himself Rodriguez has control, and control in this case allows him to spin his ideas out.
What ideas they are too. Spy Kids is a simple kids tale of two spy parents being rescued by their quickly catching on to the idea of being spies kids. It is pretty non-violent (in the sense that - like Charlie’s Angles which it shares more than a sense of fun with- guns are nowhere to be seen). It is exciting though, fast moving and played with a kids sense of wonder and irony. This is not a nudge nudge sense of irony to placate the parents, this is a slight tempering by the knowledge that this is a very unusual scenario - as opposed to fourth wall breaking gags about being in a film. The film burst with visual ideas, gadgets and just plain goofiness. The plot makes about as much sense as it needs to, but in the end this is a film about kids - so its all about the kids.
Lord spare us from dysfunctional American kids. Here, he has. Whilst both the kids in the film have problems, they do not rule their lives. When placed in a situation where they have to cope, they cope - returning to their problems afterwards. Any film which opens with the application of wart cream cannot be standard US fayre. This is not US fayre anyway, the family are Latino and the film is not set in any specific place though some sort of South American locale is suggested. This, along with many other touches, detaches the film from reality - and allows the excellent child actors to be the centre of the piece. Its a quick, fast and funny eighty minutes - with some excellent jokes.
Be warned, Spy Kids is a kids movie. It is also too much fun to be seen by just kids. Whilst there are moral messages in here, the film is not all about them (and they are naturally deduced by the characters - rather than shoved in). There are as many good jokes as an Austin Powers movie, and the design is just great to look at. So some of the special effects are a wee bit ropey - this almost adds to its charm. Robert Rodriguez has nailed what a fun kids movie should be, and I daresay created a franchise in the process. Good on him, he seems a nice chap. (8)
IF THIS FILM WAS A CAR CRASH: Everyone says James Bond hits Willy Wonka. So let me say I think there might be an assist from Charlie’s Angels.

Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
You know, I got a job offer for doing the film reviews for Hairdresser and Barber Monthly a month ago, and they sent me off to see the Satr Wars prequel. Apparently they were particularily interested in the hairstyles in this baby as the first three certainly created demand backin the late seventies for the Princess Leia headphones look. And yep, there are a few dodgy hairstyles in this one too. I lost the job though, as they did not like my scatalogical pun based humour as evidenced by the title of my piece. Hair Wars 1: The Pantene Menace.
Joking aside (and that's about it for sophisticated humour round here), its finally come out. I caught it early doors in a cinema nowhere near packed out and yep, I rather enjoyed it. And here with the review already. Yadda yadda, Obi Wan Kenobi. Yadda Yadda wooden Ewan MacGregor. Yadda Yadda Jar Jar Binks. Yadda Yadda great effects. Yadda Yadda crap story. Yadda Yadda confusing decoy Queen plot device that I still haven't worked out. Yadda Yadda Darth Maul, great fight sequence - ah bollocks. Its nonsensical to even try and review this film. Everyones seen it, will see it, or will avoid it because of the hype. I certainly did not go into the cinmea with no baggage, I've been consuming the ads since they came out. But the film is out there and I daresay I'll have to tell you whether I liked it or not.
Well, yes. It was like slipping into a favourite T-Shirt. A bit grubby, a bit old and certainly not cutting edge story wise, it still was a lot of fun. Slow in places, ponderous in others, but with some great action sequences and enough characterisation to make us care a touch. I'm not denying there are problems with the movie, but at the same time most of those problems are inherent in making the thing in the first place. Bottom line is simple. The Phantom Menace is a kids film, and as a kids film it works pretty well. The goodies are good, the baddies dispicable. It all looks great and there are loads of things that you can play at after school (there will be a run on bamboo cane again, the ultimate light sabre impersonator).
So the problems. We start halfway through the story, the evil trade embargo has blockaded Naboo. Our Jedi Knights have come to negotiate. Well, fine, but where did this evil trade federation come from? Not our problem? Well, okay but this is the Prequel, the first Prequel. There ain't no Episode Zero to explain it. This said the first twenty minutes are rather dull as well. Problem with your Jedi Knights is, they're rather dry. Whilst Liam Neeson does sparkle quite a bit as Qui-Gon Jin, we know these aren't our main characters. By far and away the most interesting character is the Queen (the elected Queen we confusingly get told later). And she musses us up with some odd doppleganger scenario. The main reason for the film though is Anakin Skywalker, soon to be Darth Vader. Here he is a kid, unusually strong in the Force. But he's still a kid. With all the acting prowess of a kid. The young fella does a good job, but this could well be why the film doesn't work so well for an adult audience. Our main hero is a kid who we cannot identify (and we know will soon go over to the dark side).
Lucas is constrained somewhat by his previous plotting. He may have had a half idea of all this stuff when making Star Wars, but I'm sure he did not have it all well plotted. It always seemed odd that Vader took so long to work out Luke was his son (the surname thing was surely a giveaway), and there are surely more problems tobe worked out down the line. In this Obi-Wan Kenobi is never allowed to meet C-3P0, as he did not recognise him in Star Wars. This will prove problematic.As will finding heroes in the darker films to come. Nathalie Portman's Queen is spunky in the Leia mould (or vice versa, if you get my drift) but Jar Jar Binks is no Han Solo. But yet again, this is merely whetting my appitite for the next set of movies...
The Phantom Menace is not a great film. Some bits don't work. Jar Jar Binks is a wee bit annoying and his CGI does not really exude much sympathy. But R2-D2 is as ever the hero. However Episode One is part of a great series. Which is part of the point of Star Wars in the first place. Lucas was making partially his homage to the great space sagas of the thirties. They had clunky dialogue too, and were not meant for anything but fun. Star Wars is not a new religion, its not even new stories. But what it is, is great escapist fun. Stuff to talk about when stoned. So what the hell, go and enjoy it. You know you want to.
Oh, I missed this one out. Yadda Yadda Yoda. (7)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Well, its a Star Wars movie. Or how about Return Of The Jedi hits The Last Starfighter.

State And Main
David Mamet: edgy, violent, provocative playwright turned filmaker. The man who made one of the best headfuck movies of all time in House Of Games, delved into the macho psyche of salesmen in Glengarry Glenn Ross. A byword for the darker side of writing in the US at the moment - and here we have his new movie. So what the hell is he doing making a sweet Hollywood hits small town comedy, a film which would have suited a latter day Capra. Has David Mamet gone soft?
Well, on this evidence he has. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. State And Main may be a relatively toothless comedy, but it does manage to hit its target with accuracy. Of course that is not too hard, given a target the size of a barn door. The story is simple, a film unit decamp to a small town to film The Old Mill. Can the unit get their film done without the star having underage sex, the leading lady storming out due to contractual difference and the itty bitty problem that the town does not have an Old Mill anymore. This is the official plot, though in the centre of it lies a very sweet and idiosyncratic love story between Phillip Seymour Hoffman (as the films beleaguered writer) and Rebecca Pidgeon, a plain speaking local.
If it was not for the romantic comedy at the heart of State And Main, the whole affair would be rather pedestrian. Have you not got the feeling of deja vu yet from the plot above. It is merely Sweet Liberty - an Alan Alda movie from the eighties. That was a gentle comedy too, and whilst Mamet updates it with a bit of an edge - ie swearing - the jokes are all pretty much the same. Certainly the talk of nude scenes and the heartlessness of Bill Macy’s director is a lot sharper than the previous film, but the cynicism seems tempered with affection. These are grotesques and as such merely play out the endless clichés that Hollywood likes to tell about itself. Of course it helps that the grotesques are played by some fine comic actors - Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker as the two stars do not quite send themselves up, but certainly play their flawed characters to the hilt. A film of anecdote, it almost loses direction halfway through, setting up set pieces for no obvious reason. That said, when the jokes comes through, they work awfully well.
As I said though, at the heart is a romantic comedy - one which might also explain why Mamet has gone soft. The writer as lead is key suggestion that there might be something vaguely autobiographical going on - especially when the writer is lovably bumbling. Its a technique Woody Allen has almost copyrighted - and there is something in the Woody Allen comparisons here. There is an attention to detail in characterisation, and some killer one-liners. Most of these are delivered by Pidgeon, who is so lively and feisty she almost seems to belong to another age. Her performance is reminiscent of Frances McDormand’s in Fargo, plain speaking, inquisitive and just fun. She and Hoffmann share a rare chemistry, akin to a screwball comedy as they banter effortlessly. In the end it is this storyline which bolsters up the rather hackneyed setting.
Fargo is another good comparison - though there is nothing quite as dramatic as the thriller in that. Bill Macy’s director has a similar edge of desperation manner, though here he has licence to be a lot more duplicitous in his creating of fictions. The film constantly teeters between a patronising and an affectionate portrayal of the townsfolk, which is a bit uneasy. Julia Stiles plays a starstruck teenage who becomes the underage predilictation of the Alec Baldwin’s star - and it is never quite clear whether she is causing things to happen or an innocent victim. This is a pity because she gets some excellent stuff to do in the first half hour of the film, but is later relegated to plot device. The same can be said of a lot of the large supporting cast. This is an ensemble piece - but the central love story does finally take over - for the better of the film.
State And Main is a relatively low key movie which is never less than fun. Whilst much of it is stagey, and it does use all of the obvious jokes, it is also rather sharply observed in places. Whether it is the kind of movie a talent like David Mamet should be making has caused a bit of debate. Whilst it will never win any awards, it is a solid good comedy, and probably the best straight comedy I have seen for quite some time. And it is quite nice to see a Capraesque comedy every now and then, a film with a surprisingly moral and sweet heart. Though wait for the very end of the credits for something which might suggest it is not quite as sweet as you might expect. But well worth it merely for Rebecca Pidgeon’s effervescent turn. (8)
IF THIS FILM WAS A CAR CRASH: Fargo hits Sweet Liberty, taking a swipe at The Purple Rose Of Cairo with Capra calling the shots.

Stigmata
I have mentioned here before that I really do not believe that people go out of their way to make bad movies. You can enter into a project with the best of intentions, only to realise that somewhere along the line things are starting to go wrong. At this point you salvage what you can of your dignity and finish the project as best you can, knowing that a better job could have been done. Then I met Rupert Wainwright, the director of the film Stigmata. He was a man with vision. He was a man who had been hauling this script around for eight years, knowing that he, and only he had the true vision to make this film - a curious blend of faith and horror - work. And he stood there, before they showed his film, and he said this to us with no sense of irony. Maybe we are so blind that we cannot see the faults of our children, but even the Yorkshire Ripper's mother disowned him in the end. Stigmata stinks up the screen my friends, in a joyous collision of cod religion, melodrama and a cacophony of sound.
The plot is relatively simple (on the surface - it thinks it's a lot deeper and more complex than it is underneath which is probably why everything is repeated three or four times in the flick). Our heroine, Frankie Paige, a hairdresser who can yet afford a fantastic penthouse flat, starts displaying the signs of classic Stigmata. She feels nails being banged through her wrists, whips on her back and bleeds copiously. A self confessed atheist it is not until sexy young priest come miracle investigator (sort of X-Files for the Vatican) played by Gabriel Byrne rocks up that things start to become clear. But not very clear, as we have to put up with the nasty soundtrack, constant jump cuts to religious imagery of Frankie (Patricia Arquette) being whipped and crucified and the irritation of a constant whisper in the background.
Now this may all seem pretty stupid, and it is, but at least there is the germ of a vaguely good horror movie here. Played straight, religion can be as scary (witness The Exorcist, or even The Omen). It turns out that she has been possessed by post (no, really) by the soul of very devout priest who was transcribing the gospel of Jesus. He wants to finish the job, against the will of the Vatican (represented here by Jonathon Pryce doing his best Cardinal Richleau impression and forgetting he was not in still in a musical). You see if Christ's own gospel - apparently knocked out during the Last Supper, between courses I would imagine - ever came out no-one would go to church and he would lose all his gold plates or summat. So out go the Vatican hit squads, Frankie gets nabbed and we have a denouement involving stranglage, pushage and pointless fire of the non-burny type. And everyone lives happily ever after (excepting the dead priest, and probably Jonathon Pryce).
Now as stupid as this seems (and it seems even stupider on screen with dialogue as clunky as the plot) there is the germ of a good idea hidden in all the guff. Namely, what would the Church do if a new gospel was found. Now admittedly it does not have to be something Jesus knocked out on the back of a napkin the night before he got a carpentry taste of his own medicine. Indeed there is a nice little justification put up at the end about a fifth gospel that was found, which the Vatican has disregarded. Nevertheless this is no excuse to turn the volume up to ten, used the most hackneyed imagery you'll ever see in modern cinema and treat your audience like the four year old who rating restrictions disallow. Gabriel Byrne, who seems to be going through some sort of religious film purgatory at the moment (wither End Of Days) tries his twinkly best, and Patricia Arquette lends a pale insouciance to the whole affair, but it is pretty much kyboshed by the whole thing being so damn silly. It thinks its being stylish, shaking Frankie in her penthouse. But whilst having a dripping roof maybe be atmospheric, and having your only source of lighting as candles when you've been going through major seizures is just dumb. But this is the beginning of a list which would fill three or four pages. The film may have had an interesting script, but the director has muddied it going for stock horror thrills which just are not horrific. Since when did being possessed by an old frail priest give you superhuman strength? (Alright, granted - its not a real life situation - but you get my drift here.)
Stigmata is a gleefully appalling B-movie. So numerous are its faux pas, so often does it rewrite its own internal myths that seeing it in the cinema is not its natural habitat. This deserves a video watching, pissed and with you and you mates in fine fettle of voice. You will shout at it til there is no tomorrow. Rather than be a film about faith, or a good horror film, Stigmata is merely a load of old tat. Stigmata of the dump would be a better title. (4)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: The Exorcist, rightly riding in its burnished black Cadillac, suddenly being rammed up the rear by a piss poor Smashing Pumpkins video. All very meaningful, yet all actually meaning nothing.

Stir Of Echoes
IThey don't make B-movies any more. The whole mindset behind making a second rate, cheap feature to accompany your first rate blockbuster has vanished. Why watch second best when you can see the top quality article. Of course people don't go to see programs of movies any more, you would be hard pushed to find many people who regularly see more than one film an evening (I always get an odd feeling when I do it, as if I have raided a sweet shop - and usually had some rough sweets in the mix). All that said an awful lot of B-features stand up well today. Not necessarily as the best films ever made, but as fine examples of their type. A B-movie would not have a big star, little in the way of location and probably a pretty small cast to keep costs down. No room for flourishes to be any good you would need at least a good story. Which is where we damn with faint praise - for Stir Of Echoes is the closest thing you will get in this day and age to a B-movie.
Okay, B-movie staple one. Not a big star. A name actor, sure, but one who does not exactly open a movie. A Victor Mature: or a Kevin Bacon. Its odd that most of the reviews for Stir Of Echoes have concentrated very much on the lack of luck Bacon has had in his career. Perhaps he has been singularly unlucky with the films his picked - but I am not convinced. Kev has certainly thrown himself at the odd actorly role (played that mute prisoner in an unforgettable film, the con in JFK) but it would be fair to say he has never taken a major risk. Gamble big, win big. Gamble small, you get to star in a film like Stir Of Echoes. He is perfectly fine in it, as convincing as his far fetched role allows him to be. If only I had not started thinking of Doctor Cornelius in Planet Of The Apes I might have appreciated it more, but Bacon's stubbled jaw was pretty chimp-like. Still I hear they are toying with a remake, and Roddy McDowell is dead.
Beside that digression though, Stir Of Echoes, like its star also does not risk too much. In that way it is at its most admirable. This is a ghost story, and pretty much the most basic ghost story there is. (Haunted house, ghost is there for a reason, discover the reason and you usually exorcise the ghost.) There are a few nice touches, but there is little to this film than providing a few spooky moments and telling what is a very simple story. Of course, there is something rather nice about hearing the same old story again, dressed in different clothes. This is where you can derive more than enough entertainment out of Stir Of Echoes, its like slipping on your favourite pants. Many comparisons have been made between this film and The Sixth Sense - some favourable on the side of Stir Of Echoes. I disagree, I think The Sixth Sense is a better film, but I do see their point. Where Sixth Sense stretches the boundaries of credulity and plays dangerously with its audiences perceptions, Stir Of Echoes plays it all very straight. Plenty of people will prefer the traditional style to the risk taking misdirection Sixth Sense produces - and this is a very traditional film.
There has not been a good straight ghost story in the cinema for years. Given the material contained in Stir Of Echoes there is not much more they could have done to improve what finally made it on to the screen. To improve their gross about all they could do is replace the cast. I think Bacon is sleepwalking through much of this, which is a pity because the rest of the cast is rather impressive - especially Katheryn Erbe who plays his wife with the correct amount of exasperation and care. Illeana Douglas plays the second fiddle she always ends up in. However the one major flaw is in the casting of the child who also sees dead people. The role requires him to be five, but at five he just cannot carry half the emotions he is supposed to present. Its a minor point, but a he comes across as a little bit stiff. Direction is taut thought, and it wins out on The Sixth Sense that its tighter, a more direct and workmanlike job.
It is all to easy to condemn a film like Stir Of Echoes for being just a good, solid entertaining film. That is what it is. A traditional ghost story, with elements of other cinematic ghost stories present. There is a surprisingly large influence on the story by Stephen King, there is some Dead Zone, and plenty of the Shining (though the source novel for Stir Of Echoes goes back tot he fifties). All that said, it is a thoroughly entertaining piece of fluff, and a welcome if unremarkable addition to cinematic ghost stories. A B-movie in all but fact. (7)
IF THIS FILM WAS A CAR CRASH: It is a perfectly executed crash of The Shining, The Dead Zone, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and The Woman In White.

The Straight Story
One thing pretty much built into British lawnmowers is the ability to cut grass. A seemingly trite observation, but one none the less precipitated by a viewing of David Lynch's new movie The Straight Story. It would be relatively difficult to traverse even the shortest of distances (say from Leicester Square tube station to Covent Garden) on a Flymo or Qualcast. I seem to remember that grass cutting technology in this country starts and stops with pushing - and takes none to kindly to being dragged around on tarmac either.
This is all brought up of course by the central premise of The Straight Story. Old geezer travels three hundred miles on his lawnmower to visit his brother. That is all you get plot wise, this is a road movie which follows pretty much all the conventions of said genre. Its not the destination but the journey that counts, and in the course of his travels our curmudgeonly old coot will of course encounter an interesting and wide cross section of people on a trip to discover what life is all about. Of course its not as trite as all that - The Straight Story is rather too good a movie to fall into any of these traps - but a road movie is a road movie and all bases on this side are touched.
The Straight Story is not just a road movie though, it is also a David Lynch film. It has U certificate. Feel free to peruse those two sentences again, together until they can both co-exist happily in you head. Now try some of these on for size. It has a linear narrative. There is no sex of any form, either on screen or suggested off. No violence (except for an unfortunate off screen encounter with a deer). And on top of all of this there are no dwarves. Sure there are a few odd-balls, but nothing more eccentric than the usual eccentric characters which people road movies. Sissy Spacek's daughter may speak a bit funny, but that is because she's based on a real character who also happens to speak a bit funny. She does it - as it happens - very well for the small amount of screen time she gets.
Only one character gets any significant amount of screen time here, and that is Alvin Straight. Fair's fare - its his story. Expertly played by Richard Farnsworth, this is a shoe-in for Oscar nominations next year. He manages to play this stubborn old man at a perfect pitch, til he eventually shows us the young man inside the old body. With a set of over-grown ridiculous whiskers, a liver spotted body and rheumy eyes this may not be much of a stretch but it sure is affecting. As is the whole film - much because its meant to be.
The Straight Story is an overly sentimental look at an idiosyncratic journey. It drips with slushy moments, and whilst Angelo Balamenti's score is fantastic, it is also designed purely to pull on the heartstrings. Perhaps Lynch is getting all of this out of his system in one film, it certainly is an elegaic view of the midwest - with the yellow corn fields and the setting sun. Equally as corny are some of the lines about family, and a confused past which appears to jumble up the two world wars. All that said, this pretty much had sentimental written all over it when it came out the box. Lynch has merely played the game since, as he rightly knows, there is nothing wrong with a sentimental story being sentimental. (Its when the story does not have that depth trouble starts).
I am not a David Lynch fan. Or at least I am not a fan of "The Wild and Wacky World of David Lynch" as espoused in Wild At Heart, Lost Highway and Twin Peaks. The Straight Story is certainly not a David Lynch film in that respect. It is a low key sentimental journey, which has allowed Lynch to exercise some of his other skills - story-telling, pacing and teasing fine performances out of his actors. I for one prefer this Lynch, and am glad that I have been given the chance to see it. The Straight Story, more than Lost Highway or Fire Walk With Me, marks Lynch out to be a true maverick in cinema today, and one who's career is still worth watching. The Straight Story is a lovely little film, and I'd urge anyone to go see. Just - get the bus eh? It's a lot less bovver than a hover. (8)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: On Golden Pond meets Easy Rider via The Lawnmower Man? Difficult to say if I mean that or not.

Sullivan's Travels
Doesn't even work as a half pun that title - does it? That said - it sounds like a good name. In a lot of ways, that is a nice metaphor for the whole film. Preston Sturges acknowledged masterpiece is a film of more than a few contradictions. Its a comedy, but one with a very dark turn to it. Its a film with a message - that films do not need to have messages. Loosely constructed, with a mismatched set of stars combining slapdash slapstick and perhaps even a patronising view of poverty. All that said, Sullivan's Travels is a marvellous film - a sophisticated trawl through vanity and poverty which has barely dated - and also manages to be the final word on its subject. A film of more than a few contradictions.
If Sullivan's Travels was made today it would be described as a self reflexive post modern treatise on movie making. It would happily sit amongst other films about films such as The Player, and a lot higher than say Scream 3. In its day though, the idea of making a film about a film-maker trying to do research would not be seen as anything unusual. Rather than suggesting this was in anyway a post-modern idea, it would merely be embraced as an interesting subject. Sturges is by no means unaware of the commentary he is making of film, and his own film-making in inventing the character John L. Sullivan, but he is well aware that being tricksy is not the only way to get laughs.
As a film-maker, Sturges was the culmination of film history up to that point. As a writer he could pen more than his fair share of pithy lines, and had a fine grasp of irony. The plot has film-maker Sullivan going out to experience what it is like to be poor, so he can make his great social movie rather than the fripperies he has been making up until then. Sullivan's Travels is in its self-reflexivity a very ironic film - but Sturges realises that poking the fun out of po-faced artists is not the secret to decent entertainment. There has to be a connection between audience and characters, so whilst Sullivan appears foolish he is never unsympathetic. To top off the irony of the plot, and the wit of the script is the slapstick and physical humour - which Sturges uses liberally to pick up any moments he felt were flagging. He does this perfectly, since the film never once lets its pace go.
Joel McCrea is perfectly cast as Sullivan. A slightly dry actor, and not a star - rather a character actor who you can seen as the intellectually vain, patronising but thoroughly decent man. He brings a quiet energy to the role, which is just as well as he is barely off the screen (these are his travels after all). Veronica Lake as The Girl (one of Sturges subtlest jokes in the film is to never give her a name) is a slightly odder choice. She is undeniably beautiful in the role, and undeniably pregnant in some shots. But her sultry charms seem ill-suited for the spunky, boyish role she is cast in. That said she is a tremendous screen presence, and there is an understated chemistry between the two leads. She may not quite fit, but then her role in the movie is a odd fitting one too - however farcical Sullivan's project is it would seem odd that a woman like her would join him in it. In as much as she strikes up the nihilistic air one would need to fake being a tramp, Lake fits in. The rest of the casting, from Sturges regular troop of player, is spot on in a hyperactive way. Special mention has to be made to the butlers, who in true Wodehouse style get all the best lines.
All of that said, there is something vaguely unsatisfactory with the film as a mere comedy. The first half is amusing enough as an unfocussed picaresque set of adventures, but Sturges is well aware that when he finally does submerge Sullivan in "the poor" this will be no laughing matter. Instead a five minute montage set purely to music shows the turning point of the film - when the laughter slowly starts to subside and we drift into melodrama. We follow Sullivan's unlikely descent into poverty with a compelling horror. In our minds we know that this minor setback cannot last forever, but it appears it will - and since we are all the more sympathetic with Sullivan we are dragged into this very dark core of the film. To lead us out of the darkness we have the unlikely saviour of Mickey Mouse - or to be more precise - Pluto. It is when Sullivan realises the need for escapist cinema, the need to make people laugh to take them away from the misery of their situation. Which is the most ironic point of the film. The message of Sturges journey through poverty and social realism is that there is nothing wrong with entertainment. To make this point, Sturges has to walk a very fine line on the edge of not entertaining himself.
Preston Sturges was a fine writer, and a director with a real sense of the history of cinema. Sullivan's Travels has probably endured as his best regarded film (if not his best known - The Lady Eve may have that on it) because of its meta-commentary on film itself. There is an awful lot of meat on the bones of this apparently simple tale. The plot is farcical, but has an internal consistency. But much more importantly, the film is itself what it sets out to champion - it is fine entetainment. There are good jokes, there is a hero to cheer, a baddie (near the end), the lead character changes and we has a drop dead georgeous leading lady to boot. To add to that a ridiculously over cranked car chase would seem churlish, but its in there. It is quite clear why the Coen Brothers have paid homage in their next movie (O Brother, Where Art Thou - the worthy social epic that Sullivan wants to make). Sturges, like the Coen's, is primarily interested in entertaining. If he accidentally makes a couple of half decent social points on the wayside - well that's all well and good too. For not only does he make this commentary on art but he also manages to display the American underclass of the depression. All via comedy. A classic in every sense of the word. (10)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: The Grapes Of Wrath hits His Girl Friday - with a bit of a Buster Keaton movie thrown it. Not to mention Pluto.

Summer Of Sam
IWay back at the beginning of the year I reviewed Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X as a prelude to seeing Summer Of Sam. Due to various procrastinating reasons I never got round to it - despite my appetite being more than whetted by those two movies. I both liked the premise of Summer Of Sam, and have rather a soft spot for Spike Lee's movies. The main reason I never saw it was due to its length (two and a half hours of man meat celluloid) the cinema's put it on at funny times. Well, I needed to get out of work early to grab this showing, but finally I have this Spike Lee joint under my belt. Question is, was it worth it?
Summer Of Sam is a very ambitious movie. It attempts to paint a picture of a place at a certain time - that time being the summer of 1977 in New York. A very hot summer, plagued by power shortages. Also plagued by a serial killer, the almost titular son of Sam. How do you tell the story of a city though? Well, Lee chooses to pick a couple of stories from this naked city and see how the city and the time affects these stories - literally becomes a character influencing events. Much play has been made of the fact that this is Lee's first non-black movie - in as much as the protagonists are nearly all Italian American's in the Bronx. This misses the point however. Lee has always been a New York film-maker, and it is his understanding of his city which comes through all of his films. That these characters are Italian's does not make them alien to Lee's understanding - and that he pitches them as well as Scorcese would is an admirable thing. Unfortunately this is one of the few good aspects of the film.
You cannot fault Lee for his ambition here. He is attempting to tell three stories, to tell his big story. First there is the tale of John Leguizmo's Vinnie and his wife. Vinnie is cheating on her, and cannot help himself. Question is will he be able to save his marriage. The second tale concerns Adrian Brody's Frankie, a Who obsessed punk who is trying to get somewhere in the music business whilst still living in his old neighbourhood - and because of his new punk look is regarded as a freak. The final story is that of the Son of Sam himself, the madness that drove him to murder and the murders themselves. These stories all affect each other, and indeed push each other on - and from this Lee hopes to paint a picture of a city in crisis. Its a tall order, and unfortunately while he was trying to stuff his film with knowing asides and interesting social commentary he forgot to notice that his basic stories are not that interesting.
In painting such a wide picture there is a danger that characterisation will suffer. Unfortunately it does. Lee tries to imbue Vinnie with all sorts of depths, but Leguizmo instead comes out as a pretty unlikable character. His only redeeming feature is his loyalty to Frankie - which since the betrayal of this friendship is the key to the film means he really does not end up with any sympathy at all. Brody fares a bit better with Frankie, he has a lot more to work with and has amusing hair after all. That said we never really get to the bottom of his work in the sex industry, whether he was pushed into it and exactly what this means about his sexuality. These are all tantalisingly placed in front of us and unresolved. Equally the female characters remain ciphers, despite some sterling work from Jennifer Esposito and the always good Mira Sorvino. Lee packs the film with secondary players who really only have one note, and hence it is difficult to care for any of them. Couple this with the intermittent view of the Son of Sam: dog barking, writing his letters to the police and the murders and there is the feeling that Lee has created an overall sense of style over substance.
Visually Summer Of Sam is equally ambitious. Lee experiments with various film grades and uses subtle speeding of certain scenes to imply various chemical states. In the use of hand-held, jerky camera work in sections plus dreamlike encounters for the Sam pieces it becomes clear that much of what Lee is doing is impressionistic. Coupled with a heavily laid on soundtrack and the effect should be all encompassing, to create the paranoid feeling which Lee expounds was at the heart of the city that summer. Instead it creates a bit of a mess. Two of the most powerful scenes in the film (arguments between Sorvino and Leguizmo) are loudly underscored by cheesy disco. This is supposed to be an ironic counterpoint, but the choice of tunes are far too obvious. Its true that we are getting Baba O'Reilly fatigue this year, but some of the soundtrack here is more than lazy. The punk scenes seem off somehow - and also contains a glaring continuity error (Watchmen T-Shirts would not be seen til the late eighties). In the end the film falls down because of the very thing it sets out to do. It tries to tell the story of a city, or even of a neighbourhood. In the end it just about manages to tell the stories it was using to illustrate this. And they are not very good stories.
For all its failings one cannot help but be impressed by the ideas behind Summer Of Sam. The way Lee has gone about telling the story of the Son Of Sam killer is certainly a lot more interesting than a straight bio-pic. Beneath the surface of the film as well we see Lee returning yet again to his oft used thesis that people are in their very nature discriminatory. Whilst the film does not ape Scorcese there are obvious attempts to tell a story which is at the same time about a city. Perhaps the problem lies in concentrating on the city more than the job in hand. To try and paint the New York of 1977 as a parallel of the fall of Rome (complete with looting and orgies) is a nice thematic idea, but these things just get in the way of the story. In the end Lee spends two and a half hours trying to tell two and half stories and does not quite succeed. Given another half hour, Magnolia succeeded in telling all that and four more. By all means an interesting film, but one which on the final reckoning does not quite work. (6)
IF THIS FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Taxi Driver meets Do The Right Thing slams right into The Silence Of The Lambs.

Sweet And Lowdown
I looked hard, I always pay attention to new Woody Allen movies closely me being quite a fan, but try as I could there was no apparent reference to the proprietary sweetner suggested by the title. The lead character is much more of a boozer than a coffee drinker, though Samantha Morton's mute does dunk a doughnut into some coffee at some time. I am a big fan of movies where the title has no real relation to the film (where this appears to be the case then the title is uttered as extraneous and shoehorned dialogue I have to admit to cheering in the odd cinema). And I am a big Woody Allen film. What could go wrong with Sweet And Lowdown?
Oh, an awful lot could have gone wrong. Sean Penn is not the obvious choice to play legendary Jazz guitarist Emmet Ray, the second best in the world after Django Reinhardt. Penn is probably the quintessential method actor of his generation, and certainly not the man you'd pick to play an almost foppish rake. Apparently Penn and Allen did not get on all that well in the making of the film - but none of this comes across. This is a fantastic performance, breathing full joyous life into a complex character. In its original conception Sweet And Lowdown was probably just a light homage to Woody's jazz legends. The comedy is there but its also a showcase for some great music which possibly would have been more than enough for Woody. Sean Penn manages to build such a light picture into a story with an awful lot more emotional depth.
Penn is helped immensely by Samantha Morton playing Hattie, Ray's mute love interest. Both actors were Oscar nominated, and both deserved some recognition merely for raising this material. Don't get me wrong, the material they get to work with is as competent as any Woody Allen movie, and the direction equally as sure. There just seems to be an extra dimension to their performances which raises it a notch. What is more interesting about Morton is that while Penn does all the talking, she manages to convey so much emotion by the merest twitch.
The loose history of a footnote in Jazz history is - like many of Allen's recent movies - a selection of amusing annecdotes strung together into a film. Here at least Allen justifies this technique by presenting it as a documentary, narrated by Jazz historians. In doing this Allen does not just tell his light - but eventually very moving - story, but he also gets to delve into one of his favourite subjects, jazz. The direction is sure footed as ever, the period details feel authentic and recall the kind of nostalgia Woody previously touched in Radio Days and The Purple Rose Of Cairo. But however good the incidentals are, this is Penn and Morton's film, indeed the steal whatever light any other actor brings to it (not all bad since the only other actress of note is Uma Thurman, who appears to be playing in a completely different Allen film altogether).
What is so unexpected about Sweet And Lowdown is how emotionally affecting it is. It is a light movie, pitched as a gentle comedy. Yet the relationship between Hattie and Ray, treated initially as yet another anecdote, actually returns in the film to haunt you. Penn plays Ray as a rake, as a thoroughly dislikeable piece of work, but one who has over-riding charisma. He is almost boyish in his enthusiasm for things, which strikes a chord with Lottie. His lack of emotional development appears to be what is holding him back. Initially the film is merely trying to explain the difference between the art and the artist. Ray was a cad, yet he produced such beautiful music. That said, the second thesis hinted near the end of the film is altogether more interesting - especially when taken in conjunction with some of Allen's recent work (Deconstructing Harry in particular). The art and the artist are separate, but the art improves the more emotional input the artist adds. Good art equals emotion, which runs counter to some of the suggestions made in Deconstructing Harry. Or perhaps Woody feels this is different case in music. Or, more likely, perhaps Woody just isn't sure.
Sweet and Lowdown is a slight film, raised to near perfection by a couple of overwhelming performances. I feel confident in saying this as I feel that Woody Allen scripts tend to retain a similar consistency. So to compare this to last years slightly disappointing (and badly cast) Celebrity you can see what good acting will do. Perhaps in attempting to just tell a light story Woody has accidentally stumbled on a really rather touching, and tragic tale. Whatever, for the performances, for the music and for the emotion this is a must see. I'm just looking forward to his follow up, a story about a young jazz singing peasant girl who loses her shoes at the princes ball. I guess it will be called Canderella. (9)
IF THIS FILM WAS A CAR CRASH: Radio Days hits maybe Take The Money and Run or Zelig (with maybe a Buster Keatonesque flabour).

All articles copyright Peter C.Baran (or authors where stated).
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