Monthly Archives: January 2008

The Mirror Crack’d (1980)

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2008 #5
Guy Hamilton | 105 mins | TV | PG

The Mirror Crack'dA star-studded cast and the director of Battle of Britain, Goldfinger and three other Bond films can’t raise this adaptation of an Agatha Christie Miss Marple mystery far above the level of an ’80s TV movie.

There are some good lines, and it’s a Christie so obviously the fundamental story is good, but the direction is flat and lacks suspense, half the cast phone in their performances, and Angela Lansbury, lumbered with a sprained ankle and premature aging, seems to be in a dry run for Murder, She Wrote. The lack of involvement by the main character is something I always find problematic with Marple stories, even when the actress involved has the necessary twinkle. Edward Fox is her match as the detective who actually does most of the detecting for once (but is still robbed of the final revelation, of course).

The best bit, which I’ll just take a moment to highlight, is the opening. It’s a black & white murder mystery, the scene of the final revelation… and the print burns up just before the killer is revealed. The film cuts to a village hall, where the film was being screened and the projector’s just died. Miss Marple proceeds to explain what will happen to everyone, based on what she’s deduced from the film so far. A man at the back who’s seen it confirms she’s right. Much better than my summary makes it sound, this is by far the film’s highlight, one of the few whole scenes that rises above the pervading flaws.

Despite a few commendable elements, this is a good tale that’s not told as well as it could be.

2 out of 5

Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004)

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2008 #4
Peter Richardson | 84 mins | TV | 15

Churchill: The Hollywood YearsWhat if the Americans made a movie of Winston Churchill’s life, prone as they are to re-write World War 2 history to show they won it all by themselves?

This is ostensibly the premise of this spoof from some of the team behind Channel 4’s The Comic Strip. I say ostensibly, because the film is bookended (for padding, I suspect) with scenes that suggest that the real Churchill was an American GI, and the British simply re-wrote history using a somewhat chubby actor called Roy Bubbles. Sadly, the joke was funnier when it was riffing on those US historical re-writes.

The problem with killing that joke is, it’s the best one the film’s got. It’s also just about suitable for a five-minute comedy sketch, or, at a stretch, a series of sketches. The strategy for drawing this out to movie-length seems to have involved those bookends, as well as bunging some outtakes at the end and including a bunch of ridiculous, irritating, and unfunny subplots with Hitler and his entourage. It’s a shame to see the talents of actors such as Antony Sher and Miranda Richardson frittered away on such material.

This is all being a tad harsh, because Churchill actually has its fair share of amusing moments. The supporting cast of British TV comedians are mostly very good, Neve Campbell’s posh English accent (usually such a stumbling block for Americans-as-Brits) is as good as anything a British actress could have delivered, and Christian Slater and Romany Malco make for a likeable pairing. But, again, most of the best bits are of sketch length, and so wind up spread out among the padding.

In that respect it’s quite a shame, because there’s a good idea, good potential, and some good laughs in here.

2 out of 5

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (2003)

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2008 #3
Kenneth Bowser | 113 mins | DVD | 15

Easy Riders, Raging BullsDocumentary, based on the best-selling acclaimed book by Peter Biskind, about the decade in Hollywood between the death and effective re-birth of the studio system.

It’s a broad story, with many threads, which means this film has a tendency to sprawl all over the place as it attempts to take an overview of it in chronological order. Consequently it’s short on great insight, but does provide an overview of what went on in this period — that is, the story of how Hollywood made the transition from the old studio system to the era of the blockbuster (a method which still more or less exists), via a brief period where directors truly had auteur-level control.

There are numerous interesting interviewees to help the story along, all of them people who were actually there, who lived through it and helped create it. This makes for a refreshing change, as most documentaries of this ilk seem to be full of film historians and journalists. Of course, there are many big names notable by their absence, so when the film makes its rambling way onto the likes of Scorsese and Spielberg that familiar sense of historic detachment does begin to creep in.

All told, it gives a good overview of the shape of what happened in this period, and how Hollywood became what we know today. Anyone after deeper explorations (of the period, the people, or the films themselves) will want to look elsewhere. I suspect the book may be a good place to start.

3 out of 5

Dark City (1998)

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2008 #2
Alex Proyas | 97 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Reposted today in memory of the great Roger Ebert, this was a film he championed and, as you’ll soon see, I adored.

Dark CityA little while ago I wrote about not falling in love with new films any more. Well, put bluntly, here’s one.

Dark City is probably the most underrated film I’ve ever seen. It is, to my mind, absolutely brilliant. It’s an intelligent and engaging neo-noir thriller with wonderful sci-fi twists. The imagery is fantastic — the film is beautifully designed and shot in a wonderfully stylised and highly effective manner. The sets and effects are breathtaking — not showy like so many blockbusters, but utterly effective and impressive. The script and story are complex (though never too much) and interesting, allowing you to piece together the mystery of just what is going on. To my mind, it’s much more effective than the whole “what is the real world” thing of The Matrix.

Incidentally, on that subject, if you’ve seen all of that particular trilogy you may find some bits of Dark City eerily familiar — to say which would spoil things, but many are so obvious you don’t have to be a film buff to spot them. Either both universes are based on similar philosophical ideas, or the Wachowskis just ripped this off (in case you hadn’t noticed, it predates The Matrix by a year, and many of the most recognisable elements are in the sequels anyway). Considering there hasn’t been a lawsuit (to my knowledge), I’ll guess it’s the former. But Dark City does it all better: there are no rambling, incomprehensible speeches and it doesn’t batter you around the head with philosophical claptrap when all you want is the story to move forward.

The film’s single major flaw is the studio-imposed opening narration, which gives away far too many plot twists — honest to God, if you ever watch this, mute it during the New Line logo and don’t turn the sound back on til the first close-up of Kiefer Sutherland’s fob watch. If you don’t, you’ll find most of the mystery of the plot ruined, as this narration shockingly gives away most of the answers. (There are rumours of a director’s cut, 15 minutes longer and without that narration, slated for release back in 2006. Maybe this year it’ll turn up as a “10th Anniversary Edition”.)

I could witter on for pages about how much I’ve fallen for Dark City. It’s a superb movie, massively underrated, that I hope I haven’t over-hyped for any reader who wants to seek it out. But please, if you do, heed my warning about muting the opening narration — it really is worth it.

5 out of 5

Dark City placed 3rd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2008, which can be read in full here.

The Simpsons Movie (2007)

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2008 #1
David Silverman | 83 mins | DVD | PG / PG-13

The Simpsons MovieAnd so 2008 begins with one of last summer’s biggest hits: the long-awaited big screen debut of America’s most well-known family. I’m not a big Simpsons fan, unlike many film critics it would seem — I like the show, undoubtedly, but I’ve never watched it regularly and haven’t sat through a whole episode for years (not even the recent-ish Ricky Gervais or Kiefer Sutherland ones).

This might explain why the movie didn’t feel tired to me, as some have described it. It might not be laugh-a-minute, and there are some sections where the plot has taken precedence (not always with good reason), but the gag count is nonetheless high and some are genuinely excellent. The plot is suitably epic, mostly justifying the need to be on a big screen at feature length. Some of the subplots feel like episodes of the show, but that’s fairly inevitable when converting a format such as this. Everything looks bigger; the quality of the animation is high; and while I’m sure the events will have no lasting impact on the characters, it does feel like a simple TV episode or two wouldn’t do it justice.

It may be that The Simpsons Movie wasn’t the ground-breaking best-comedy-ever that it needed to be to impress some. But it made me laugh, and often; at least as much as any other recent comedy, if not more so. That makes it a success in my book.

4 out of 5

Here we go again…

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With 2007 finally finished, it’s time to begin all over again for 2008. I outlined some of the changes to the format previously, though not necessarily very well… or very interestingly…

Anyway, you’ll see those in effect very shortly: as with last year, I’ve actually seen a film on New Year’s Day! Hurrah! Though this year it wasn’t a new release. And it was at 2am, almost leading to it being included in last year’s list — it would’ve made for a nice round 130. But no, honesty prevails. And a desire to get going on the new quest.

So here we go again: one down, 99 to go…