Film Fanatics: January 2002
by
News and Reviews
- Any chance you might, you know, get a life?! Despite the general consensus that the hugely anticipated and over-hyped Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was something of a disappointment, a great number of people are eagerly awaiting the second film, Attack of the Clones. But no one can be looking forward to it more than John Guth and Jeff Tweiten from Seattle, who began queuing outside their cinema on 1 January, determined to be first in line when the tickets go on sale... on 16 May.
- Oops! The release of Meg Ryan's new film Kate & Leopold, a time-travel romantic comedy, was delayed for four days in the US after preview audiences mistakenly 'picked up a suggestion of incest' in the story. Apparently they inferred that actor Liev Schreiber's character slept with his own great-great-grandmother!
- Ooh, my heart bleeds! The current season of Friends was supposed to have been the last, as the actors (and their characters) grew older, the premise less believable and the ratings fell. But it seems that salary negotiations have already begun on Series Nine. The six stars, none of whom have found the real success they had hoped for on the big screen, are apparently asking for $1 million per episode, but producer Warners and US television network NBC say the current wage of $750,000 each is all they can afford.
BLACK HAWK DOWN (15)
In October 1993 US forces moved in to Mogadishu, Somalia on a simple mission to arrest two lieutenants of the warlord Aidid; hours later, both sides were counting the corpses. In the current climate films dealing with war and the American military are increasingly popular, at least in the States, but are they any good?
Heat: "[The film manages] to deliver a gruellingly realistic account of urban warfare. The fear, the pain and most of all the confusion are pushed to the max. [But] 'the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan, except for the whole movie' turns out to be not such a smart idea, after all. First there is no relief from the gore. Second, a movie needs characters and a story. We are barely introduced to these helicopter pilots and Ranger infantry before they are dispatched to hell. ...Confusion may be the terrifying reality of street combat in hostile territory, but it makes for unsatisfying big-screen entertainment. Also, the way in which you feel a tragic loss with each US death [there were less than 20], while hundreds of Somalis are casually gunned down like Indians in an old western, is unsettling."
The Times (Culture): "Black Hawk Down is one of the most vacuous, banal and tedious war films ever made. All the intelligence and gripping drama of Bowden's book is missing among the mindless action. Scott offers nothing but a chance to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of slaughter and shoot-'em-up survivalism. Never mind the politics or the people of Somalia: pass the bullets, pour on the blood, fill the screen full of flying body parts and hope for a killing at the box office. Black Hawk Down is $90m worth of war porn. ...The 64-year-old director is like some overexcited little boy, so enthralled by the bangs and booms of battle that he's just not interested in the bigger picture. When he stops to consider the politics of the conflict, we end up with the idea that Americans are foolish to believe that they can bring the light of democracy into the heart of darkness. This leftist anti-imperialism is a new version of the old reactionary Evelyn Waugh's view that Africans and democracy simply don't mix. And the racism of the film is quite staggering. From start to finish, we get nothing but sweating, sinister-looking black men or brutal black mobs pouring down streets, baying for blood. ...Scott claims to have made an authentic account of what happened, but this is not true. As Bowden's book makes clear, there were many times when American soldiers did not stick to the rules of engagement. They shot unarmed women and children. Scott never shows this, or the scenes of dead Americans dragged through the streets, yet he [still] claims to show us the gritty realism of war."
The Observer: "One of the most convincing, realistic combat movies I've ever seen, a film presenting a confused event with clarity and involving us as if we were there in the thick of the fray. Black Hawk Down isn't about citizen soldiers fighting a manifestly 'good war' as the GIs were in Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. It's about professionals, volunteers, people serving and protecting their country in times of so-called peace. Their motivations vary but in the final analysis they are held together by comradeship, self-respect and the proud sense of belonging to an elite force."
The Daily Mail: "The movie, based on Mark Bowden's best-selling account and shot in a heightened documentary style Ridley Scott, works brilliantly as a 'you are there' account of urban warfare. Be warned that it is also incredibly gruesome. Unfortunately, the film is almost totally lacking in three Cs: coherence, characterisation and context. .It is hard not to feel uneasy about the film's racial bias. And it seems wilfully determined to ignore the conclusion drawn by Bowden's book, that the fiasco came about because of an under-researched change of policy by the Clinton administration, sensibly opposed by the outgoing chief of staff, one Colin Powell. .However arresting its visual imagery, this is a misleading, cynical and unconsciously racist film."
LONG TIME DEAD (15)
A group of students embark on a drunken, drugged up Ouija board session one night and inadvertently summon up an evil spirit which proceeds to slaughter the friends one by one. Can they discover why this mysterious demon is stalking them and how to defeat it before it is too late?
The Evening Standard: "Debut director Marcus Adams has cunningly set his piece in a gloomy half-light, so that we may not accurately gauge just how little money he had for special effects. When in doubt, he sends his camera whizzing down corridors at high speed in the hope of scaring up some suspense. Just for good measure, he then ends this bravura performance by taking on not one, but two "surprise" endings. Come along, Mr Adams, it's time to put away childish board games."
Heat: "It's a well-made attempt to do a mainstream British teen horror film, with reasonable performances from the attractive young cast. [Unfortunately] it's every bit as silly and predictable as your average Hollywood teen chiller and even resorts to average CGI monster effects for the climax. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to do a Brit teen horror might at least have come up with an original spin on the genre. This is as routine as Urban Legends 2."
The Observer: ".A dim British horror movie. [As] they're slaughtered one by one and the audience sighs gratefully that there are just seven little idiots rather than [Agatha] Christie's 10. Poor Tom Bell as a sinister landlord and Michael Feast as an incarcerated murderer give the young actors more support than they deserve."
The Times (Culture): "The problem is that we don't learn enough about the monster to give our fears a foundation. .We never get a clear sense of where. [the evil spirit] is from or what its beef might be. The soundtrack keeps on crashing and cast members keep on dying, but we're always too confused to care."
IRIS (15)
This biographical film, directed by Richard Eyre, profiles the British writer Iris Murdoch, who died in 1999. It cuts between her youth as an ambitious young woman at Oxford University (played by Kate Winslet) and her old age, when she slowly succumbs to Alzheimer's disease (devastatingly portrayed by Dame Judi Dench).
The Daily Mail: "Murdoch's decline into inarticulacy, incontinence and finally death is presented as a savagely ironic fate for someone so extravagantly brainy. Unfortunately, the film shows a distinct lack of curiosity about other aspects of her life. .This is well made television, rather than superb cinema. It's unlikely to be a big hit, for there are few narrative surprises, the story is intrinsically depressing, and a mass audience will find it hard to identify with its character. But if you have an interest in the subject matter or enjoy top-quality screen acting, you should certainly see it."
The Observer: "Dench. does remarkable things with her eyes which are haunted, sad, vacant, suddenly illuminated by warmth and intelligence, simultaneously looking out and looking in. Initially Iris knows what is happening to her and as an atheist and person who lives by words she sees oblivion ahead - 'I feel as if I'm sailing into darkness,' she says, as indeed we all are. Jim Broadbent is also excellent, showing John Bayley's devotion and responsibility, and that unconditional love that grows with time and continues when all else is gone. One leaves this distinguished movie thinking of that last line of Philip Larkin's 'An Arundel Tomb': 'What will survive of us is love.'"
The Evening Standard: ".The tone throughout is perfect. Eyre maintains an extraordinary equilibrium between pathos, humour and tragedy. He balances the joke and wit of a relationship with all its concomitant problems, little jealousies and idiosyncrasies, against the impending sense of tragedy. .Iris shows us a life - and death - of the mind. A triumph."
Heat: "Iris provides a fascinating insight into the life of an ambitious young woman and the struggle her aged self faces as dementia destroys her brilliant mind. As ever, Dench turns in an Oscar-worthy performance, so much so that Murdoch's real-life widow John Bayley claims he can barely tell the difference. [However] the plot doesn't extend much further than: young Iris falls in love with John; old Iris loses her marbles. [Despite this, the film is] a draining but utterly engaging tribute to a remarkable woman."
The Times (Culture): "It's just too easy to touch an audience through the spectacle of sickness. Beneath its high-culture veneer, Iris employs the same manipulative, sentimental tear-jerking tricks that Hollywood does all the time. Eyre misses the really interesting subtheme of this story, which is how a mediocre man copes with being in the shadow of a brilliant woman. .But Eyre shows no interest in this; instead, he opts for the melodrama of her sickness. So, what about those so-called Oscar-winning performances from Winslet and Dench? That's the trouble: they both give the kind of polished performances that draw attention to their acting. For my money, it's Broadbent and Bonneville who steal the show. They present us with a person to look at, not a performance to admire."
Film quiz
Just how much of a film fanatic are you? Answer these questions, add up your scores and find out!
Easy (one point for each correct answer):
- Which British star of Pearl Harbor can now be seen playing opposite John Cusack in romantic comedy Serendipity?
- Rock Star's Jennifer Aniston shot to fame playing which character in popular US sitcom Friends?
Less Easy (two points for each correct answer):
- Which British actor will play the incredibly vain Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in this year's Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets?
- The Fellowship of the Ring is the first book in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy - can you name the other two?
Difficult (three points for each correct answer):
- Which star of teen horror film Soul Survivors is best known for her guest appearances as rogue slayer Faith in the hit US television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
- Which female star of hit television sketch show Smack the Pony can also be seen alongside former footballer Vinnie Jones in Mean Machine?
(Answers at bottom of page.)
Film chart
Since the figures are not always available until after the event, the Box Office chart may occasionally be a couple of weeks behind. Sorry!
UK BOX OFFICE (week ending 12 January)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- Rat Race
- Behind Enemy Lines
- Mean Machine
- Domestic Disturbance
- The Princess Diaries
- Rock Star
- Soul Survivors
- Serendipity
Quiz answers:
- Kate Beckinsale
- Rachel Greene
- Kenneth Branagh
- The Two Towers, The Return of the King
- Eliza Dushku
- Sally Phillips
How did you do?
0-4 points: Who needs film when you can listen to the radio, eh?
5-8 points: You're a fan all right, but you're not a fanatic yet.
9-12 points: Move over Spielberg, there's a new man in town!
Post to del.icio.us
