Austin Powers, everyone's favourite swinging superspy, returns again in Goldmember. Not content with playing three roles in the last film, Mike Myers opts for four in this one, and is also joined by Michael Caine and Beyonce Knowles.
Okay, so this is a comedy. Is it funny? YES. Does anything else matter then? Not really. The plot is sketchy at best, and the film itself is little more than a bunch of loosely connected jokes and locations, but you find yourself simply not caring because it more than fulfils it's primary need to be funny.
The cameos are startling and hilarious (don't let anyone spoil them for you if you are unaware of them - in fact, punch them in the face if they tell you who's in it) and Myers is in good form, though perhaps falls a little flat as the newest character, Goldmember (who's more bizarre than funny). Beyonce Knowles does okay as Foxxy Cleopatra - an obvious homage to blaxploitation heroine Pam Grier, and Michael Caine is perfectly cast as Austin Powers' dad.
So, if you want a laugh, this is it. As other reviewers have noted elsewhere - not all the jokes work, but they come at you so rapidly that you hardly have time to stop laughing at the ones that do. It makes you wonder why Myers had a break from the series to do something as poorly-received as The Love Guru.
TRIVIA: Bucking the usual trend of sequels, Goldmember made more money at the box office than either of it's predecessors.
DIRECTOR: Jay Roach
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Mike Myers and Michael McCullers
KEY ACTORS: Mike Myers, Beyonce Knowles, Michael Caine, Seth Green, Michael York, Robert Wagner, Verne Troyer.
RELATED TEXTS:
- The first two Austin Powers films, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
- The Austin Powers series (besides being a parody of James Bond) owes a lot to the swinging 60s spy comedies Our Man Flint and In Like Flint.
- The young Michael Caine footage from Goldmember was taken from the film Hurry Sundown.
AWARDS
Nominated for various comedy and popular choice awards.
Blast From the Past is one of Ben Elton's shorter books, and another damn fine $5 bargain I managed to pick up back when my local Collins bookstore got taken over by Fox's Unleashed bookstore brand. Like every other Ben Elton book I've read, this is both an amusing and thought-provoking read that seemed to fly by.
Our three main characters are Polly, Jack and Peter... Polly works for the local council and lives by herself in a little flat. Jack is a big American General who had a passionate fling with Polly twenty years earlier. Peter is a man who has been stalking Polly for the last two years. The book switches perspectives between all three characters and we learn more about how they relate to each other as things progress.
Polly used to be an activist and a bit of a hippy and Jack was just starting out a promising career with the Army. Against all the odds, the opposites attracted and they clicked despite their differences. Now, after many years, Jack has decided to return. Meanwhile Polly is being menaced by Peter, a really messed up guy that gets under our skin as much as he does Polly's.
Obviously, this being a Ben Elton book, there are more than a few surprises in stall. The book is very fast-paced and switches character perspectives (as well as between the past and present) with the greatest of ease. It's very tightly constructed and Elton proves again and again what an adept sleight-of-hand-author he can be, pulling surprises out left, right and centre like bouquets of beautiful flowers from a magician's sleeve.
Elton uses his characters and story to talk about gender-roles, military morality and the debilitating affects of obsession. Most importantly, as the title implies, the book is about the past and how it relates to the present. It's not as clever as Elton's Dead Famous or as thematically big as High Society, but it's a tight and funny read and very enjoyable.
For the last few years Robert De Niro has made a very limited range of films - alternating mainly between studio-thrillers and mainstream comedies that teamed him with various leading comic actors (Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller). Everybody's Fine breaks this pattern by placing him into the 00s indie genre. It puts him into a new framework and actually gets something different out of him. I was expecting a slightly tacky attempt to get De Niro back into the Oscars game, but this film is a lot better than that - calling to mind the growing traditions of 21st century indie dramas and eliciting some of De Niro's best work in fifteen years.
Frank (De Niro) is a retiree and recent widower who finds himself spending Christmas alone after each of his four children make excuses not to come. Feeling alone and isolated, Frank takes it upon himself to embark on a quest across the country, spontaneously visiting each of his children in turn. He finds himself revisited by his maxim, "Work hard. Be the best", and the consequences this has had on his offspring. Frank starts to realise that the lives they now lead may not match up with the picture they and his wife presented to him in the past, and he will have to decide whether to confront this or continue his life in the dark.
Parts of the film work as a bittersweet fable - as Frank visits each child he is challenged by each one a little bit more than the last. The audience comes to see him less as an awkward, out-of-touch grandfatherly character and more as a working class man who placed unrealistic pressure and high expectations on his children. The subplot that follows Frank's journey of rediscovery is the mystery of what has happened to David (his unseen, artistic son), and why his children are keeping it from him. There's Amy (Kate Beckinsale), the highflying advertising executive, Robert (Sam Rockwell), the orchestra musician, and Rosie (Drew Barrymore), a dancer in Las Vegas. Some of the film's charm and cleverness lies in the deception and clues that surround who Frank thinks each child is and who they really are, though most of the film's success is down to De Niro's performance.
This is completely De Niro's film in a way that so few of his roles in recent times have been. He's surprisingly endearing as the lonely father who's lost touch with his kids, and brings a sincerity to the role that matches his best work in the 1970s. He's like one of those old people you meet in shopping centres or on the bus and they just want to talk to someone. It's a little bit sad, and the performance completely disarms the viewer and places Frank with our sympathy and pity... which makes it all the more affecting when we start to learn of his domineering past as strict father (which should be more familiar territory for De Niro fans). The shock of this realisation comes as much to us as it does to him, and it's a great piece of empathic filmmaking that ensures the viewer is with Frank for every step of his emotional journey. It could be argued that the supporting characters aren't given enough depth but I think this would be missing the point. The fact is, this film focuses on Frank and his lack of knowledge regarding his children, so the way that it's scripted or acted is entirely conscious of this.
The film isn't just De Niro's great characterisation though. It's about the lines of communication that inform our relationships - something made explicit by both Frank's career as a telephone-wire manufacturer and the visual wire motif embedded in the film's script and sequencing. It's also a highly engaging story about how families operate, about the hard truths and the love that makes them hurt so much. A surprisingly good drama.
DIRECTOR: Kirk Jones
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Kirk Jones, based on a script by Massimo De Rita, Tonina Guerra and Giuseppe Tornatore.
KEY ACTORS: Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale, Melissa Leo, James Frain.
RELATED TEXTS:
- Based on the film Everybody's Fine, an Italian movie made in 1990.
- There is also some thematic/genre similarity with the film About Schmidt.
AWARDS:
Paul McCartney was nominated for Best Song at a few minor awards festivals.
Nominated for Outstanding Film and Best Actor (Robert De Niro) by two lesser known American film awards associations.
This is a rather joyless and forgettable adaptation of a classic novel by Thornton Wilder, a story that meditates on the belief that 'everything happens for a reason' (or in other words, there you go but for the grace of God) and concepts of fate and free will. I'm sure it's a great novel and all, but this particular film version is full of it's own seriousness and importance whilst suffering from severe pacing issues. A lot of the time it simply just doesn't feel like a coherent piece of filmmaking.
It's 18th century Peru and the collapse of a bridge causes the tragic death of five vaguely connected individuals. A monk (Gabriel Byrne) witnesses the event and writes a book questioning God's purpose as a result - something that prompts a theological enquiry into the tragedy that involves the political machinations of colonial South America in relation to the theatre. I think. It's a bit hard to tell without prior knowledge of the novel as a lot of the plot strands are either too vaguely defined or too devoid of any semblance of cinematic spark.
I think the biggest problem is that it's hard to even see the point of the religious enquiry, let alone the point of the film. The Bridge of San Luis Rey is just so dreadfully boring, and it boggles the mind why so many great actors would agree to be in it. It might've been saved if the sub-Shakespearean dialogue had been moderated for the sake of accessibility or more naturalistic performances, or if any one particular character had been made into something approaching a protagonist. Instead it's just an seemingly-endless muddle that eventually stops.
Robert De Niro plays a lead-ish kind of character, the arrogant and corrupt archbishop who spearheads the monk's trial by Inquisition. He gives a deliberate, wry and passionless performance that puts the viewer in mind of an 18th century version of a modern lawyer. It isn't very interesting, though he does sport a rather funny-looking goatee. De Niro also doesn't seem entirely comfortable with the dialogue, which may explain why he has acted in so few period dramas throughout the length of his career. F. Murray Abraham easily gives the most watchable and believable performance as the spoilt viceroy of Peru, whilst Kathy Bates would be the most embarrassing castmember - her incongruous American accent cuts through the film like an electric carving knife at a sombre funeral feast.
Anyway, there's nothing to recommend this film, it's just boring and overblown. Avoid.
A fairly paint-by-numbers cop drama with a bit of an 80s vibe. Robert De Niro plays Vince, a manhattan cop lured back to Long Beach (and his past) by a drug-related murder connected to his son, Joey (James Franco). Vince and Joey haven't spoken for more than ten years, and Vince must face the sins of his past in order to make things right before it becomes too late.
This isn't a great film but if you enjoy cop or crime dramas you'll find it solid enough. Long Beach is evidentally a sea side slum... the opening credits ironically recall it's conception as an idyllic holiday spot in the early 20th century, something that has long since given way to a wasteland of junkies and collapsed buildings. A lot of City by the Sea's elements make it feel like a throwback to the 1980s - De Niro's cop mullet, William Forsythe as the long-haired, harley-riding bad guy, the heavy-handed music, the use of drugs and responsible parenting as pertinent issues. Adding to this is the cliche of old cops talking about "jerking off" and "taking shits" in order to suggest familiarity and camaraderie - it's the sort of lazy film shorthand that has been overdone to a point where it just feels unnecessarily coarse and contrived rather than humourous.
Where the film excels though is the romantic subplot between Vince and Michelle (Frances McDormand). It actually shines well above the rest of the film - these two consumate actors draw a subtle A-game out of each other, exploring a world weary second chance at love for people who've already been around the block. They're enough at ease with each other at the film's beginning to allow for some degree of exploration without obviousness or melodrama. Michelle actually comes to drive De Niro's character, their dynamic becomes the key motivating factor for him, like she's his conscience. De Niro meanwhile makes his character a bit of an easy-going wiseass - a middle-aged divorcee who enjoys being beholden only to himself, and someone not all that very well equipped to deal with the central issues of the film.
I guess this movie will best appeal to true crime fans, it's a bit slow in the middle but there's a few good scenes (such as the pivotal scene between Joey and Vince towards the end) and everyone seems to be giving it their best despite the film's general lack of ambition.
TRIVIA: Although the film is credited as being based on a true story, the similarities between this and the events connected to real life detective Vincent LaMarca are superficial at best. City by the Sea Hollywoods it up a fair bit - in reality Vince did not have anything to do with the case attached to his son, and the murders connected to the real-life Vince's father and son were deliberate (whereas in the film both are accidental).
DIRECTOR: Michael Caton-Jones
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Ken Hixon, based on an article from Esquire magazine by Mike McAlary.
KEY ACTORS: Robert De Niro, Frances McDormand, James Franco, William Forsythe, Eliza Dushku, Patti LuPone.
RELATED TEXTS:
- Mystic River deals with similar themes of criminal aptitude vs. family history.
A somewhat willowy melodrama that managed to attract an all-star cast, this is a very 90s story (with that gorgeously soft 90s-drama look) about estranged sisters and responsibility. Marvin's Room was based on a play (it kind of shows) and features Diane Keaton in an Oscar-nominated role as Bessie - a terminally ill, self-sacrificing spinster who looks after her dementia-afflicted father, Marvin (Hume Cronyn).
When Bessie is informed by her doctor, Dr. Wally (Robert De Niro), that she has leukemia she decides to get in contact with her estranged sister, Lee (Meryl Streep), in the hope of finding a bone marrow match. With this compassionate reason in mind, Lee is able to get her delinquent son Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio) out of the mental hospital for long enough to visit her sister. Hank is surprised to find that his long-lost aunt couldn't be less like his mother, but he still resists taking the test to determine if he is a suitable doner. The rift between the family will have to be healed metaphorically befeore any physical healing can be done.
Streep is entertaining as the selfish, gumchewing hairdresser... she's always with a cigarette in her mouth and sometimes borders on outright white trash, but Streep imbues the character with enough dimension to get past Lee's superficiality to establish some level of sympathy with the audience. DiCaprio continues the promise of his earliest performances (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, This Boy's Life) with a realistically caustic teenage characterisation. Keaton is okay, her acting sometimes seems too overly contrived towards eliciting pity, but she works well with Streep and DiCaprio despite this. De Niro's character (a mild, genial doctor) seems rather colourless and flat amongst all the histrionics... maybe that's intentional, but then again it's possibly just laziness on his part as Marvin's Room comes right at the beginning of a ten year stretch in his career where he would give a series of mostly uninspired performances.
As I mentioned, you can kind of tell that this is based on a play. It features three strong central characters (Lee, Bessie and Hank) who fight and reconcile with one another relentlessly throughout the film, and little else happens. Bessie is a woman who has given up her life to look after her infirm father, whereas Lee is entirely self-motivated and unwilling to accept responsibility. Hank nurses longstanding emotional wounds as a result of the distance between himself and his single mother, and frequently tests the boundaries of their relationship. The material isn't anything particularly new or exciting, but the leads are more than talented enough to make it at least marginally interesting. I can't say it's an amazing film, it's a bit too deliberately weepy for my tastes, but the performances are worth watching.
TRIVIA: This was Hume Cronyn's last film. Although the film is named after his character, he doesn't speak any lines as his character has a pretty bad case of dementia. Cronyn continued to act for another five years, but only on television.
Quite possibly my favourite film of all time and the one that motivated me towards film analysis in general. Whether it be from peripheral and misguided identification with the central character's alienation, or the way the film captures 1970s New York City in all it's scumsucking grottiness, I don't know. There's just something about it that speaks to me. It also doesn't hurt that De Niro gives one of the greatest performances of all time, and that every single shot is a dazzling tour-de-force into the personal space of an unforgettable icon of alienation.
At the heart of Taxi Driver is the story of Travis Bickle (De Niro). Travis is a loner and Vietnam veteran who takes to driving a cab around the worst parts of New York in order to fill in the night hours opened up by his insomnia. He decides to volunteer his services to the campaign for Senator Palantine in order to meet a girl, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), and woefully attempts to romance her by taking her to a porno theatre. His increasing failure to intergrate with society (and general disgust with the underbelly of New York) begins to manifest itself in anti-social ways. He constructs a plan to assassinate Senator Palantine and fantasizes about saving a 12 year old prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster) from her mafia-connected pimp (Harvey Keital), building a special arsenal of weapons concealed around his body to help him get the job done.
I have to admit that I have resisted any attempt to review or discuss this film at any length for a long, long time. I've always been afraid that I could never do written justice to how much I love this film, or the depth of thought I've given it. It's been a while since I've watched it so I feel distant enough from it at the moment to give it a cursory overview. With this mind, I'd like to say that there is so much to this film that this review can't even touch, I can't even begin to express a small fraction of it's brilliance.
On a thematic level, Taxi Driver is essentially about crossing the line between fantasy and reality. Director Martin Scorcese has made a long and accomplished career out of examining individuals who have failed to integrate with society - ranging from his classics (Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Goodfellas) through to his more recent films (Shutter Island, The Aviator) and his less-appreciated works (The King of Comedy, The Last Temptation of Christ). Taxi Driver embodies this theme completely, Travis is a man who yearns to act out the normal life of a film protagonist - he wants to get the girl (Betsy), humiliate the rival (Tom, played by Albert Brooks), rescue the damsel in distress (Iris), and be the hero. He fails on some level to accomplish any of these things... there is suggestion that Iris is better off under the tutelage of her pimp, the girl he wants is unsuitable for him, and his confrontation with Tom only makes him look unhinged.
A great key to understanding this film lies in it's continuity errors. If you watch Travis's haircut closely you'll notice that it changes length throughout the film... I'm not just talking about the kamikaze mohawk he sports towards the end. If you watch him closely his hair changes from a regular haircut to something like an outgrown buzz cut and then back again. By piecing these scenes together into a haircut-friendly continuity, you can locate some of the film's original narrative (it can also be seen in the film's script). In the script, Travis's attempt to kill Palantine can be seen as a direct reaction to Betsy's rejection of him (it may even be possible that he intends to kill Besty, not Palantine). The scene where Travis buys guns is actually meant to follow on from his conversation with the babbling trigger-happy customer he picks up in his cab (played by Martin Scorcese), and the way Charle T knowingly calls him "killer" is actually meant to take place after his grocery-store altercation. There are lots of other scenes like this that - if viewed in the scripted order - make a lot more sense of Travis's actions.
The point of reshuffling of all these scenes into a non-linear fashion is that Travis's motivations become less knowable to the viewer. The workings of his mind become less connected to the traditional cause-and-effect cycle, and as a result it deconstructs the role of Travis as a regular hero or villain. In the end he's just deranged, and the way Scorcese has re-edited the script into a new sequence of scenes taps into Travis's failure to follow the traditional character arc afforded to most cinematic protagonists. It's all part of why Taxi Driver is such a perfect film.
Moving on from such lofty notions, Taxi Driver remains incredibly watchable if only for De Niro's to-the-wire performance. He dominates the entire film with an intense magnetism whilst never truly letting the audience in. Travis is the ultimate loser, contradictorily sympathetic and repulsive to the very end. The ending itself is a beautiful, almost fairytale-like sequence of violence that leads to a powerfully ambiguous final shot. If you're yet to see Taxi Driver I implore you to take a crawl through hell with Travis, you'll never forget it. There's no other film like it, it's one of the true American masterpieces of the 1970s.
This is a strange piece of exploitation filmmaking that came about due to Robert De Niro's popularity in the mid to late 70s. De Niro had previously made a film in 1969 called Sam's Song... back then he was a nobody and the financing on the film ran out and it barely got released. Fast forward to 1979 and De Niro is now a superstar thanks to movies like The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter. The guy who owns the rights to Sam's Song get wise to this and decides to use his footage of De Niro for key scenes in a new film, The Swap, in order to cash in on the actor's recent success. The result is an extremely poor, low-budget revenge-thriller.
Sam (De Niro) is an aspiring young film maker with a dodgy moustache who gets mysteriously killed back in 1969. It's now ten years later and his brother Vito (Anthony Charnotta) gets out of prison and decides to avenge his brother's murder (a conceit that allows for zero interaction between the protagonist and De Niro). The film follows Vito around as he speaks to the people that knew Sam and they piece together the events leading up to his death. Vito begins to uncover a blackmailing scheme gone wrong involving an amateur porn tape implicating some of his brother's so-called friends.
So... all the De Niro stuff takes place in flashback, and it doesn't really have all that much to do with what Vito is investigating as the original film (Sam's Song) actually had nothing to do with blackmailing or anything like that. What you get is two seperate films awkwardly edited together, where none of the characters involved in the main narrative even share the screen with De Niro (in fact, some of the characters that Vito revisits from the original film aren't even played by the same people). It's tacky, cheaply-made, and trades on bad wannabe-gangster stereotypes with stilted, cliched dialogue. You'd be forgiven for thinking you were watching a porn movie without the sex scenes, that's how bad it is. Oh, and nothing remotely interesting happens at any point whatosever - the 'exciting' climax is completely devoid of any dramatic tension.
The De Niro sequences are easily the highlight of the film, especially a slow motion sequence where Sam acts out a beachside shoot-out where he plays both the shooter and the victims. Other than that it's boring, lame and has no real reason to exist other than as a way to use the De Niro footage from Sam's Song.
TRIVIA: This film is also known as The Line of Fire. It probably has two names in order to try and trick people into buying it twice, because whoever made it is obviously a scumbag.
The original film, Sam's Song, is notoriously hard to find. A lot of copies of it are allegedy just re-labelled copies of The Swap, and are not actually the original film. There's been a lot of confusion regarding these two films, so much so that IMDB.com listed them as the same movie up until just recently.
Back before either of them had made a name for themselves in Hollywood, director Brian De Palma and actor Robert De Niro collaborated on a cheaply made and amateurish farce called The Wedding Party. Filmed in 1963, it didn't actually get released until 1969 due to the production company going broke. As such, it's De Niro's first acting credit, and he has a significant supporting role as Cecil, a friend of the main character. There is no real reason to watch this film whatsoever unless (like me) you want to see an impossibly young Robert De Niro make his film debut.
There isn't much of a plot to speak of, it's more a series of mildly subversive and satirical comedy sketches based on the lead up to a wedding. Here's a rundown of the scenes just so you don't have to unneccessarily watch this film: Charlie (the groom, played by a guy named Charles Pfluger who never acted in anything else, ever) meets the bride's family via a series of endless introductions, Charlie's friends try to talk him out of the wedding, Charlie tries to sneak into his fiancee's room and talks about wedding night lingerie, Charlie's friends have a stag party without him, we see the ominous married-life routines Charlie is in for if he goes through with the wedding, the young couple gets advice from the Minister via an endless series of annoying metaphors, Charlie tries to talk a sikh pilot into taking his fiancee off his hands (one of the film's poorer sequences - it's meant to depict a conversation in a small plane but it's thoroughly unconvincing), the final banquet before the wedding, Charlie hooking up with a bookish girl, and then a final scene centred around the wedding day jitters.
It's a kind of ironic comedy of errors, but you won't be laughing because the poor quality of the film seems to override any genuine laughs that might be had. De Palma is very much in film-student mode as the director. He plays with film speeds (he speeds up and slows down the footage whilst keeping the dialogue at a normal speed, and then does the opposite - speeding up the dialogue over normal footage) but the point of this doesn't seem very clear. He also does a few other experimental things just for the sake of being experimental, including a weird scene where he cuts back and forth between contradicting shots of characters having a conversation (the point of view changes from one character to another whilst the background remains the same... it's jarring). The one thing that De Palma can probably claim credit for out of this film is discovering Robert De Niro... the two would go on to make two further small films together (Greetings, Hi Mom!) before De Niro would make it big, with De Palma obviously recognising enough talent in the young actor to give larger parts in each successive film.
De Niro himself looks weirdly short and sports an angular buzzcut, wearing uncharacteristically preppie combinations like dress shorts and a knitted sweater. His distinctive voice is more than evident but it's a bit more fey than usual, suggesting that he was yet to gain the confidence that would inform his later screen performances. All of his scenes are part of a double-act with William Finley (a minor actor who appears in several De Palma films) and it's a sizeable part despite his character not being credited by name in the credits. I will warn any De Niro fans out there though - despite the novelty of seeing the legendary actor at such a young age your interest in this film will wane long before it is over. It's not a very good film at all, and I dare say it only still exists simply because of De Niro's involvement.
I mentioned a themed week a couple of days ago... I didn't end up seeing The Expendables on the weekend so I thought I might as well jump straight into the week. This week I will reviewing a bunch of Robert De Niro films, most of which I haven't seen before. The first one will be up either this afternoon or tomorrow.
Also, you may have noticed I've changed the look of the blog a bit. Did you notice? Oh, you! Nothing gets by you, does it? Bear with me as I'll probably change it a little bit more.
Stay tuned!
Hoping to check out The Expendables and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World in the next few days.
I am having a lot of continuing computer dramas at the moment that make me want to hurt a lot of people... it also doesn't help that I have a couple of assessment tasks due. So it looks like it will be another slow couple of days on this blog. But, stick with it, ay? I'll make it worth your while. Planning a themed week of reviews either next week or the week after.
The Devil Wears Prada is a big screen adaptation of the hit chick-lit book of the same name. It was singled out for praise by a few critics at the time of it's release, and even got a few nominations at the Golden Globes and Oscars (including a Best Actress nod for Oscar-holic Merryl Streep).
Andy (Anne Hathaway) is a young writer fresh out of college looking to break into journalism. Somehow, she manages to get an interview for the much-coveted position of Assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the editor of high-flying fashion magazine Runway. Upon arrival it becomes clear that she is not at all suitable for the job. Andy knows nothing about fashion and is completely uninterested in much of what the magazine has to say, but Miranda hires her on a whim - the last few girls who had the position were completely unable to cope with the pressure, so maybe Andy (being the odd one out) will be a lucky choice. What ensues is a deep-end introduction to the world of Miranda Priestly, frosty queen of the fashion world and one 'hell' of a 'demon'-boss to work for (sorry I couldn't resist).
Short of being based on a novel, it's hard to see why this film was more critically-acclaimed than other chick-flicks like, say, Suddenly 30. It's perhaps more likely that it's 'acclaim' (if you could call it that) is more an indication of shifing attitudes from film critics as opposed to a direct indication fo the film's quality. I don't mean to rag on the film at all, it's a pretty good film as far as the chick-flick 'genre' goes - I just don't see why this one got singled out over other similar films that were just as good. Also, while I'm griping, Andy is meant to be the everygirl, someone who hasn't got a clue about high-fashion and is sneered at by models - on a few occasions she is even referred to as 'fat' by the other characters. Now, I know this last bit is meant to be an ironic reflection of the bulimic world of models and superstars, but I couldn't really see any difference between Anne Hathaway and the bone-thin models the film was criticising! Shouldn't they have cast someone a bit less skinny in this role? Or maybe Hathaway could've, I dunno, put on some weight for the role? I haven't read the book so I can't really comment on what the author intended her heroine to look like, but it just seemed a bit at odds with the script's atitude.
On the plus side, Meryl Streep gives a stripped back, minimalist performane as Miranda - a performance so cold and emotionally stingey that you can't help but want to see her pleased as much her assistants in the film do. In this respect, The Devil Wears Prada is similar to Meet the Parents in the way that it uses a legendary screen icon to personify and inspire intimidation. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Streep here (or perhaps more precisely her character Miranda) is that her 'arc' in the film (if you could call it that) doesn't follow the standard cliches of the genre.
This is a good film, it seems to have something genuine to say and isn't overly concerned with hitting all the usual rom-com beats you might expect it to. It's funny sometimes, but I'd say it's firmly more drama than comedy. Streep's good in it (and at her age she probably had to work fairly hard in order to slim down so much), but for me the film didn't really come alive until the last few scenes where Andy finally gets close enough to Miranda for Hathaway and Streep to share some decent scenes together.
This is a kids-aimed fantasy/historical novel and from what I understand it is the first volume in what will probably be a trilogy if not a series of novels (novellas). I went into this book not really expecting anything, it was sent to me from over the seas (okay, from America) and I found it to be a rollicking and pleasant read.
It is the middle ages (more specifically, the dark ages). Tristan is a young orphan of mysterious origins who is co-opted into the order of the Knights Templar and finds himself flung headfirst into the Crusades. Sooner or later he and his kindly master find themselves in a Saracen-enforced seige (soon to be slaughter) and Tristan is entrusted with a valuable Templar artifact (okay, it's the Holy Grail) and given instructions to take it to safety. Boundless adventure ensues!
Like I said earlier, this is a pleasant read. There's nothing pretentious or forced about it, it's an historical adventure aimed at a young audience but fit to read for anyone who likes this sort of thing. I tend to like this sort of thing. It's peppered with lots of cool medieval details, and it could probably be called semi-educational in respect to how realistic it reads (but not in a dry, non-kid friendly way). The Crusades aren't the most fun-packed of historical events and the author does well not to sugarcoat or romantacize it. The writing style is effective, and the characterisations are memorable and seemingly effortless - which is no mean feat when you've only got 240 pages and a fairly large font to work with.
There were two little things that kind of threw me off a bit. The first, and more major one, was the inclusion of a cast of supporting characters that seem to have come straight from the story of Robin Hood. I was left scratching my head a bit as to the relevance of this... it's as if the author felt his story wasn't strong enough on it's own so he went and chucked in some medieval 'celebrities' to keep the kids entertained. I want to say that it wasn't necessary but this is the first book in a series so I'll reserve judgement in case the real relevance of this becomes more apparent in later volumes.
The second quibble, and this is a more minor one (and the blame may fall on the publishing company rather than the author), is the decision to use American spellings rather than English. Normally I wouldn't care but it just feels wrong given the subject matter, setting, and the fact that the whole thing is concerned with English events and English history. It's a first-hand account told from the point of a view of an English peasant boy... for him to adopt American spelling when America hasn't even come into existence yet felt jarring to me. It hardly effected my enjoyment of the book but this is my blog and I'll get on my soapbox as much as I like, so nyah.
I hate to start all my final paragraphs with 'anyway' but Anyway, this is a great action-packed fast-paced novel and I'd recommend it to any parents looking to get their boys interested in reading. The parents might even like to read it too.
A fun and slightly schlocky 70s thriller about post-WWII Nazi war criminals getting up to no good and stuff like that, ala The Boys From Brazil and numerous other paranoid tales from the 70s written by pulpish British and American authors. The Odessa File concerns a secret organisation made up of surviving SS officers who plan to keep the Nazi dream alive by doing evil things with new super weapons. Jon Voight plays the German freelance journalist who stumbles upon this conspiracy and is convinced by Israeli spies to try and infiltrate it. Dark and dangerous hi-jinks ensue.
Jon Voight (who I normally enjoy) comes off as a little patronising as the crusading kraut with a conscience, echoing Brando in some of his more condescending and "issues"-motivated performances. The underrated Maximilian Schell however gives another above-average performance in the sort of role that he has been forever typecast in (shifty Europeans with dodgy pasts... in most cases it has something to do with Nazis), and is always watchable. The film has a particularly awful and uneven score, but other than that it's a fairly cracking thriller and is worth watching if you enjoy spy films centred around unimaginable conspiracies. A solid 70s Euro-action flick.
With a title that evokes high adventure, High Sierra is a classic heist film that makes it's mark with a breakthrough performance by Humphrey Bogart as the multi-faceted gangster Roy Earle. We're introduced to Roy's story with a grand intro that pulls the film's credits scrolling up into the clouds that hug the summits of the Sierra Mountains themselves. It's 1941 and the synergetic teaming of Raoul Walsh (a director with more than a few hits under his belt), John Huston (an up and coming writer soon to become a legendary director himself) and Humphrey Bogart (who had featured in a range of supporting parts and was itching to make his mark as a memorable leading man) would put an end to the era of old-school gangster epics. High Sierra broke the mould, ushering in a new era of gangster films with a heightened sense of characterisation and a less black and white view of morality.
Roy is an ageing, toughened criminal currently serving life in prison. He gets pardoned by a friend in a high place but soon finds out that he must buy his freedom by masterminding one last job. Roy is the last of a dying breed and it seems he can't escape his reputation, so he is sent up into the Sierras to knock off a resort hotel with a motley collection of half-rate would-be hoodlums. It's a less than ideal situation but Roy has his own code of honour and must see the job through. He'd like nothing more than to 'crash out' (escape to freedom) so he keeps this dream in sight through his unlikely courting of a young, crippled country girl (Joan Leslie).
This classic adventure-thriller has so much going for it. Foremost is Bogart's performance as Roy, a no-nonsense tough guy with a soft heart. It's an unusually sensitive portrayal for the genre and the era it's made in. Roy has a soft spot and affinity for small town or country folk (belying his own long-forgotten origins) and continually endears himself to the audience through his repeated meetings with a family of California-bound hillbillies. Ida Lupino also makes an impression as Marie, the hardened little-girl-lost who comes to worship Roy despite his lack of interest in her. It sets up an interesting dynamic that flows in tandem with the unpredictable twists of the plot. Also of note is Pard, the alleged 'death' dog who features throughout the film like a bad omen, and the climactic car chase through the Sierras.
Put simply, this is a memorable must-see movie full of great dialogue, action, thrills and an affecting, stand-out performance from Humphrey Bogart.
TRIVIA: As mentioned earlier in the review, Bogart mostly played supporting roles or appeared in B movies up until this point. The lead in High Sierra was actually offered to Paul Muni first, but Bogart talked him out of it so he could have a shot at it. Bogart got a lot of attention for what he did with the character of Roy Earle, and as a result from this point on he would play nothing but leading roles up until the day he died.
DIRECTOR: Raoul Walsh
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by John Huston and W. R. Burnett, based on a novel by W. R. Burnett.
KEY ACTORS: Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Joan Leslie, Henry Hull, Arthur Kennedy
RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel High Sierra, on which the film is based.
- The film was remade as Colorado Territory in 1949, starring Joel McCrea, and as I Died a Thousand Times in 1955, starring Jack Palance.
- W. R. Burnett also wrote or co-wrote Little Caesar, Scarface, The Beast of the City, The Asphalt Jungle, Wake Island, The Dark Command and The Great Escape.
This is a rather earnest anti-racist drama based on true events where American soldiers fostered romances with Japanese women in the post-WWII Japan. Of course, being the mid-1940s and coming out of an era of intense nationalistic aggression, it was only a matter of time before these soldiers would have their relationships quelled by the American military institution. Sayonara documents these events in serious and soporific fashion, laying out a grand tragedy of duty, death and forbidden love that really hasn't aged all that well in light of the many more intelligent (and entertaining) films to deal with similar subjects in the years since.
Brando plays an airforce Major (nicknamed 'Ace') in recovering post-war Japan who finds himself smitten (despite his own cultural beliefs) with a popular Japanese stage performer Hana-Ogi (Miiko Taka). His airforce buddy Joe (Red Buttons, in his Oscar-winning role) has already taken up with another Japanese woman, Katsumi (Miyoshi Umeki - see trivia below review). We follow Ace as he struggles with his own racist indoctrination and then tries to win Hana-Ogi's heart despite the cultural animosity that exists between them. Beyond this he will have to fight America itself if he is to keep her as his wife.
It's one of Brando's better performances, coming at the tail end of his initial golden era of acting. He adopts a southern accent, calling to mind the 'good old boy' network of the military and marking him out as at odds with the rest of the cast. His character starts out the film as an easygoing yet firm objector to interracial relationships, and alongside this character the audience comes to see the wrongness of this stance as we're taken inside a grand soap opera of tragedy and hope loosely based on the experiences of real life American military personnel.
Brando actually took on this film on the proviso that he could change the ending to a more hopeful one, marking the start of his trend towards films that reflect a positive social message. Unfortunately, the ending rings a little false and devalues the film's themes... it probably doesn't help that the film thoroughly undermines it's anti-racist message by hypocritically casting Ricardo Montalban in yellowface as the character of Nakamura. Montalban tries to remain as dignified as possible but he comes across as nothing short of ridiculous - and this in itself isn't neccessarily the worst thing about his presence. In a film that makes a big point of showing interracial relationships between white American males and Japanese women, it's incredibly cowardly to only allow a depiction of a white woman with a Japanese male if the male happens to be played by a white actor in yellowface makeup. It reeks of a double-standard that renders it's message as impotent and irrelevant.
With this in mind, Sayonara comes across as somewhat flawed and isn't one of the more well-remembered films of it's era as a result. It also doesn't help that the film in general is somewhat overblown and could do with some tightening up. A passable drama.
TRIVIA: Miyoshi Umeki won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Katsumi, becoming the first asian to recieve an Oscar. To date she is only one of four asians to win an Oscar (the other three, all male, are Yul Brynner, Ben Kingsley and Haing S. Ngor).
The Queen could have very easily been a TV movie of the week, given it's subject matter (the death of Lady Di and the royal family's reaction to it) and the nature of what you would imagine to be it's initial target audience. I couldn't imagine anyone other than Helen Mirren playing Queen Elizabeth II without making it ridiculous though, and Michael Sheen is perfect casting as Prime Minister Tony Blair. I think it's also somewhat snobbish to underestimate the power and importance of the events portrayed in this film... the death of Lady/Princess Di is to the 1990s generation what JFK was to those in the 1960s, and I think The Queen gives this piece of recent of history the serious treatment it deserves.
The film picks up with the appointment of Tony Blair as Prime Minister of England. Through his first official meeting with the Queen as PM we are introduced to the protocols and reverence that surrounds the royal family, and we witness this meeting of two worlds from the viewpoints of both sides. After these initial few scenes that help us get to know how the dynamic is supposed to work, we then get the story proper… this film deals with the death of Princess Diana and the fallout that came afterwards, in particular the public’s reaction to the Queen’s refusal to comment on the matter in any way whatsoever. It was a historical event that marked the first time in hundreds of years that the British people challenged their monarch in such a way… the death of Diana was a galvanising event that scratched the surface of the relationship between the royal family and their country to reveal the modernistic resentment that bubbled underneath. In short, it was a wake up call for the Queen.
This is a fascinating and extremely well-made film. Once you get past the sheer audacity of how close-up we get to a living sovereign as stoic and unknowable as Elizabeth II, it’s quite realistic and manages – against the odds – to humanise the woman most of us are familiar with as mainly being the face on the back of our coins. Through the Queen, director Stephen Frears offers us a fascinating and largely unfamiliar viewpoint on one of the most emotional and well-known events of the late 20th century. It’s an incredibly bold and engrossing move, and you can’t help but wonder how true it all is. Let it be said though, that the talent involved here ensures that the film is always miles away from any tacky television movie about the royals, and it retains it's credibility at all times. The film manages not to sensationalise, despite it’s tackling of a controversial subject.
Helen Mirren is the undisputed star of this movie. Frears wisely doesn’t over-saturate the screen with her, and whenever she appears her presence is so impressive that it demands our undivided attention. What will she say? What morsel of emotion will she let us have? How will she react to what such-and-such is saying to her? Mirren's Oscar win for the role was thoroughly deserved. The rest of the cast is fairly spot on too – Michael Sheen is incredibly well cast as Tony Blair, combining boyish charm with earnest sympathy to add depth to what could’ve so easily been a caricature.
This is an excellent film, far better than I imagined it would be. It manages to evoke sympathy for the Queen without softening her resolve, dignity or stubbornness. It enlightens and makes you understand the world the royals live in and why they act the way they do.
If there's one Australian children's fiction book or series that has left a big impression on a recent generation of readers it would definitely have to be John Marsden's successful Tomorrow When the War Began series, which is presumably soon to be given a new lease of life with the upcoming release of a film version.
Taking place in an unspecified country town, seven teenagers - fresh out of high school - go on a camping trip to a remote area of the bush they call 'Hell'. On their return to civilisation they find that Australia has been invaded and that they must keep their wits about them if they're to remain free - the town and their families having been taken hostage by the invaders.
I'm a sucker for survival/apocalypse stories. There's something about the atmosphere that says 'anything could happen'... no character feels safe from an unexpected death or exit and you're never 100% sure how people will react in these kinds of situations. Marsden gives us a wide range of characters in our seven survivors and it makes for interesting reading as they must decide what to do, how to go about it, how to deal with conflicting opinions within their group, and how they will survive without giving themselves up to the mysterious invaders.
We're never told who has invaded Australia but I think it's fairly likely it's Indonesia... I don't want to stir anyone up, the book (well, at least not the first book in the series) certainly doesn't give anything away in regards to their identity, but if it's to be realistic I think that's our best bet. The invaders are almost a mcguffin device though (at least in this book), most of the drama comes from within the group of survivors and how they manage to keep from being killed or captured. It's quite realistically done, it doesn't really stretch suspension of disbelief too far, and it still manages to be fairly exciting and action-packed. My only quarrel is that no explanation is given as to why a country town would be under seige from invaders - Australia is a big country, surely the coasts would be taken first and surely the country towns would have some warning of what was happening as a result? I doubt any country would have the resources to take every single town in Australia at the same time. However, I've only read the first book in this series and perhaps answers to these questions are provided further on.
The thing that most impressed me with this book is that Marsden never forgets that his main characters are teenagers straight out of school... their capabilities are completely in touch with their age and he writes surprisingly well and realistically for them, he doesn't underestimate his audience and he doesn't have his characters do anything that would seem out-of-keeping with their age group. Everything is just right.
So if you're looking for something to read that's exciting and Australian-made then this is it. And if you know any teenagers who want to read something that doesn't talk down to them, this book is perfect for them. The series runs for seven books in total, and is followed by a seperate trilogy featuring the main character.
