Film Fanatics: June 2002
by
News and Reviews
- Calendar Girls, the new movie based on the story of the now infamous ladies of the Rylstone and District Women's Institute, who stripped off for a charity calendar, is due to start filming next month. Among the increasing number of distinguished actresses who will also be required to disrobe for their art are the award-winning thespians Penelope Wilton, Annette Crosbie, Helen Mirren and Julie Walters - the latter two being the main stars. The only male member of the cast to have been named so far is Ciaran Hinds. A share of the profits has been pledged to the Leukaemia Research Fund.
- Kate Winslet's salary for her latest film, the micro-budget Brit-flick Plunge, was a mere £1,500 - substantially less money than the actress is used to receiving. Apparently, having been told about the project by an actor friend who appears in the film, she fell in love with the script and agreed to work for first-time writer and director Max Newson on the film. She filmed her part while simultaneously working on Enigma and Iris, her two big films this year. Winslet appears as a road sweeper in the movie, which is set in Cornwall and cost a monumentally modest £9,000 to make. Though the actress offered to work for no fee at all, saying she wanted to back an unknown British film, Newson said he "thought it right to pay what we could afford - although it's nothing like her usual cheques."
- US rapper Eminem has been displaying his customary articulacy while talking about his debut feature film 8 Mile. Though the movie is loosely based on his own upbringing, the star was keen to emphasise that it was not strictly autobiographical: "I play a guy called Jimmy, I don't play me in the movie." When asked what he thought of the film Eminem was apparently not moved to wax too lyrical - "I've seen most of the movie, and it's better than I thought it was gonna be. The first time I saw the trailer, I cringed." Since 8 Mile has no scheduled release date for the UK, it will be quite some time before UK cinemagoers can judge the cringe-worthy factor for themselves.
MONSTER'S BALL (15)
Leticia (Halle Berry), a hard-up black woman, meets Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), a white prison guard in a small, fairly racist town in Georgia. She strikes up a relationship with him, all the time unaware that he works on Death Row, where her husband (Sean Combs) is about to be executed.
The Daily Mail: "Monster's Ball is not perfect. There are slow patches in the first half-hour, and the director devotes an unnecessary amount of time to the electrocution scenes, when the film is not really about the rights and wrongs of the death penalty. But it resembles some of the best films of the Seventies in showing the real, unglamorous side of America without false sentiment. It shows us unintelligent people without patronising them in the slightest. It makes its liberal, integrationist points without hectoring us, and even though it touches on the darkest sides of human nature, it leaves us with a sense of optimism. For all of these reasons, Monster's Ball ranks among the best American films of the year."
Heat: "[The] lengthy central sex scene between Berry and Thornton is perhaps so raw and realistic that it's rather painful to watch.some sensitive souls might not [cope]. Similarly, the whole story is peppered with so much violence, frustration, hatred and bigotry that the beauty of the love story might not be enough to make up for all the bleakness. Not easy viewing by any means, this is brave, bold, and often stunningly powerful stuff."
The Times (Play): "Berry won the Best Actress Oscar for this role and hers is a marvellous performance. Sexy, downtrodden, and very angry, she slowly allows Thornton's implacable Hank to creep into her confidence. The painful differences of their background and lifestyles give the romance an almost taboo feel. It is beautifully shot by Forster, who captures the rage and loneliness of his characters, and never over-eggs the melodrama. Thornton's gift for understatement has never been better used. At times he looks like the living dead. Berry is a revelation."
The Observer: ".This film has a message of hope, for Hank meets Leticia after the hit-and-run accident and drives her dying son to the hospital. They are the orphans of the storm (meeting, quite literally, during a torrential downpour) and the film poses a big question: can they go beyond consoling each other in their terrible grief, cross racial barriers and break out of the cycle of violence, emotional deprivation and self-hatred that determines their lives? The developing affair between Hank and Leticia is given the ring of truth by its generally unsentimental handling. Their first bout of lovemaking begins tentatively as they get a little drunk. It's an extended, sweaty business, initially awkward but increasingly tender, and quite different from the soft-focus, slow fade-out treatment one customarily finds in Hollywood productions. There is some clumsiness in the film, especially with the plot turning on people's ignorance of matters they might have picked up from a local newspaper or town gossip, but there's nothing wrong with the performances."
UNFAITHFUL (15)
An attractive woman (Diane Lane) who seems to have the perfect life - beautiful home, lovely son, gorgeous husband (Richard Gere) - begins an intense affair with a sexy French bookseller (Olivier Martinez). All's well until her husband finds out, when events begin to take a nastier turn. Based on the French film Une Femme Infidèle and directed by Adrian Lyne.
The Times (Play): "There is none of the raw tension that drove Lyne's most famous picture, Fatal Attraction. But there is plenty of cheesy flirting between Lane and her French boyfriend."
Heat: "What's wrong with it? The story. The plot development that leads that movie into thriller territory is hard to take seriously. A bit frivolous to be an effective psychological drama, and a little slow to work as a gripping crime flick, Unfaithful risks not quite pleasing anyone."
The Daily Mail: "Unfaithful returns to Lyne's favourite topic of marital infidelity among the prosperous, but this time it's a middle-aged wife (Diane Lane) who is betraying her husband (Richard Gere) with a dishy young Frenchman (Olivier Martinez). Lyne is polished and stylish but, as usual, he looks as if he is advertising something - probably illicit sex - so when he comes over all moralistic towards the end, it feels phoney. Chabrol's 1968 film Une Femme Infidèle was an altogether more subversive movie, with its offbeat cynicism about supposedly respectable folk discovering murky depths to their sexuality. Lyne has no time for such Buñuelesque subtleties, and goes for a straightforward sexploitation thriller. The subject matter of marital infidelity needed either a lighter, or a more serious, touch - not the fake concern of a sleazy adman."
The Observer: "Lyne's film is about the corrosive effects of adultery, and the screenplay has fiven the picture a sharper social dimension. Some smart touches heighten the suspense and increase the plausibility. .This is a decent film, far superior to Lyne's Fatal Attraction, of which it is a distaff relative. As the married couple under pressure Gere and Lane are most affecting, and much warmer than their French predecessors. Incidentally, this smooth American movie is the work of a British director (Lyne), a splendid British cinematographer (Peter Biziou) and a great British editor, Anne V. Coates. Why are they there when we need them here?"
CRUSH (15)
A group of forty-something friends meet every week to bemoan their lack of male company and consume copious amounts of alcohol, cigarettes and chocolate. But the dynamic is altered when Kate (Andie MacDowell) begins a passionate affair with the young church organist Jed (Kenny Doughty).
The Mail on Sunday: ".No director in the world could possibly have understood the script for Crush. Perhaps that's why John McKay got to write and direct his very own disaster. The story of three fortysomething women in a Cotswolds village trying to get a man is a tryingly baffling mixture of Sex And The City, The Golden Girls and Last Of The Summer Wine. The film stumbles from lip comedy to unnecessary tragedy before finally giving up the ghost entirely."
Heat: "Despite its American leading lady, this is a distinctly British film likely to appeal to fans of cosy rural dramas like Peak Practice. What begins as a light chick-flick comedy turns into a bittersweet saga, but without the wit or warmth that allowed Four Weddings And A Funeral to pull off a similar trick."
The Times (Play): "Far from being a simple schoolboy fantasy, Crush yields a surprising amount of emotional complexity. What really motivates (Imelda) Staunton and (Anna) Chancellor to conspire against their best friend's new toy boy?"
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 Marvel Comics superhero has just been brought to life on the big screen by Hollywood actor Tobey Maguire?
- Which British actor played the love interest of American Andie MacDowell - currently appearing in Crush - in the smash hit Four Weddings and a Funeral?
Less Easy (two points for each correct answer):
- Rupert Grint, who found fame as 'Ron Weasley' in Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone is currently starring in which of the Box Office Top 10 films?
- Which Irish pop singer stars opposite Guy Pearce (Neighbours, LA Confidential, Memento) in the big budget adaptation of HG Wells's The Time Machine?
Difficult (three points for each correct answer):
- The title of which film currently on release in the UK comes from an old-English term for a party thrown in jail for a condemned man before he's executed?
- Josh Hartnett, presently starring in 40 Days And 40 Nights, appeared opposite Britain's own Kate Beckinsale in which big-budget wartime flick last year?
(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 7 June 2002)
- Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
- 40 Days And 40 Nights
- The Time Machine
- About a Boy
- Snow Dogs
- Panic Room
- Not Another Teen Movie
- Thunderpants
- Bend It Like Beckham
- Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam
Quiz answers:
- Spider-Man
- Hugh Grant
- Thunderpants
- Samantha Mumba
- Monster's Ball
- Pearl Harbor
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
