Telstar

40%

Shrill and unmodulated movie about an innovator which itself lacks storytelling innovation. The recreation of a past era is anodyne since this movie is more interested in namedropping the pop icons of the early sixties shamelessly without offering any sense of why the social changes these stars heralded were happening. Pop music is presented in a political vacuum as if this were enough for dramaturgical purposes.

This story of the rise and fall of the world's first independent record producer (Joe Meek) does not get under the skin of the central character as if somehow frightened to defame a now dead man. Because all of the characters are more or less the same, this movie presents a weakly written screenplay that cannot differentiate who from whom; leading to a shallowness of characterization that makes the story somewhat tedious to follow. A pity, since the actual reasons why such a talented man should descend into Phil Spector like paranoia would have been fascinating.

The essential problem with films about talented people is that only those who are genuinely talented can ever make them. Ken Russell's biopics were such good value for money, for example, because he personally understood the creative process himself and so could depict it visually. At the end of the day, this movie is no more than a calling card from a film director with his eye firmly on a career in Hollywood who wants to prove he can direct. Technically well made but oh so dull.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Gauntlet

60%

Rather self indulgent Clint Eastwood movie in which the director and star both take potshots at their own onscreen tough guy persona. This is a tale of redemption and political corruption about a slow witted Arizona cop told with great wit in a carefully written screenplay that wants to entertain as well as inform.

The set pieces are well done but over the top but Eastwood is making ironic commentary on the violence of White America, the violence of American Cinema and of his own previous portrayal of Dirty Harry. So long as you take it in the spirit intended, this is good fun, especially as Sondra Locke makes their onscreen relationship work by imbuing it with a secret sense of what their offscreen relationship was like. Solid political and sexual satire that refuses to take itself too seriously.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

I Love You, Man

40%

Yet another White Men undergoing a crisis in their masculinity comedy that shows no sign of ever trending out. Given the stupidly orificial nature of the humor, one wonders if the comedy produces the crisis rather than being merely a reflection of it. Or worse, that it actually perpetuates the desire to remain emotionally immature.

Rather more silly than funny, the sophomoric jocularity will have you falling asleep long before the film ends. It is as if the filmmakers think all the jokes have already been told, so have decided to make fun of the very concept of comedy. They are daring the audience to laugh at complete rubbish that does not even have the compensation of being the slightest bit surreal or even absurd.

The tiresome orificialness is presented as if it were emotional honesty, rather than affective self indulgence, in a tale wagging the dog story of sexual relationships wherein sex causes love rather than the other way round. Such relationships fail – as here – since they lack substance because the marriage is more important than the relationship. Yet they are still presented as either desirable or unavoidable in the apparent absence of any alternative. This explains this movie's lack of genuine content that is as morally evasive as its characters.

The superficiality of men who cannot relate to other men without the fear of homosexuality is as tiring for them as it is for us, the audience. Films about superficial people can never be anything other than boringly superficial, unless their problems are dramatically explored. If this is really how White males relate to one another in Western culture then the Feminists must be right when they claim masculinity here is in (an unfunny) crisis.

The immaturity of the filmmakers is exposed by their desire to tell their audience what they already know, as if this were somehow profound. Like a teenager discovering sex for the first time and thinking that they are the only one.

One day these filmmakers will actually come to terms with their incipient homosexuality, their fear of women and their refusal to grow up. But people without a sense of humor can never laugh at themselves. The self indulgence here is distinctly embarrassing in a movie composed almost entirely of weak, deleted scenes taken from a much better film. The worst sin of films like these is that they are so parsimonious with their jokes.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Shifty

60%

Although well-directed, this movie has some serious narrative structure problems. The central mystery presented is difficult to follow because so little information is imparted to the audience. We lose interest because not even piecemeal data is offered to us. Without at least being told something - even if in dribs and drabs – there is almost nothing to go on in order to maintain our interest.

The actors are not at fault here but a script that has few insights into the world described and, thus, nothing much to say about it. So much so that the writer/director feels the need to conceal this behind would-be suspense. Moreover, the characterisations are ineptly written because undifferentiated; making them all more or less the same. Yet the writer makes great claims as to the eponymous character being somehow different!

This director is a better filmmaker than a screenwriter and is clearly more interested in formalistic style and technique than content. Fortunately this film is not very long and the actors first-rate, although the chemistry is not as convincing as it could be between the characters. Ultimately, this movie never raises its game much above the level of anecdote.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Babette's Feast

100%

Brilliantly-understated critique of those pious melancholics who claim that Christian fundamentalism is true Christianity because goodness is merely a case of not doing bad rather than of actively doing good. Such pious mystics believe in the salvation through self denial that leads only to celibacy and regret for what might have been. Instead, they simply deny the existence of physical pleasures by simply talking as if they do not exist when they plainly do. This explains their essentially one note emotional repertoire that the actors convey well. Stéphane AUDRAN, Bodil KJER and Birgitte FEDERSPIELare luminous; easily carrying the film up to satisfy its numinous ambitions.

However, the main characters meet their match in Babette who teaches them through her self to unite faith with passion; body with soul; spirit with flesh through the food she presents them one evening. Offered as both a thank you for their hospitality & sanctuary and as one last expression of her vocation as chef de cuisine.

The style is slow and thoughtful and the archetypal characterisation serves the theme of living life to the full very well. The presentation of food is mouth-watering and it is very easy to be carried away with the sheer sensual pleasure of eating. Soul-food indeed.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

To Live and Die in LA

60%

Good hoist with his own petard crime drama, that is rather too slow moving and lacking in insight into why a cop would become so obsessed with catching a criminal that he becomes one himself, for its own good.

That said, the performances are excellent and intense and the style very slick indeed.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Requiem

60%

A young girl's burgeoning sexuality comes into conflict with her mother's Christian fundamentalism; the latter of which is a cover for a lack of parental love. The daughter seems either to be possessed by the Devil or to be an epileptic.

This is a sensationally intense melodrama of family life that tries to come to grips with the sexual malaise of Western culture, following its various, failed sexual revolutions. As always, if the acting is good, then you do not need special effects – and Sandra HUELLER is the best SFX this film has. However, the movie is emotionally unfocused as to why the central character wants to become a Christian martyr. Like an anorexic, she seems afraid of the bodily changes of adolescence: She enthusiastically embraces her Christian heritage while simultaneously claiming to be possessed by a Devil demanding she renounce it.

A well made movie that simply lacks depth.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Mansfield Park

80%

Human sexuality and (its perverse corollary) rape are more in evidence here than one would ever imagine possible in a Jane Austen adaptation and breathes a welcome breath of fresh air through the whole period drama style. This is allied to an unusually eidetic appreciation of the racist source of the UK's Industrial Revolution inspired wealth. But the modish references to slavery are not fully developed and are still shown as something that happens far away; leaving its beneficiaries not unduly troubled.

All of these features make this an exceptional movie of its kind; while still detailing the usual social class conflicts between the arranged marriages necessary to perpetuate the class system. Along with the idea of marrying for love, so beloved of nineteenth century lady novelists who are far too intelligent to adapt to the gender roles assigned them at birth. Cleverly, the heroine here is also the author as she directly narrates the plot through her own short stories that are, themselves, then published.

Austen's satirical wit and sense of irony are both ever present regarding those leisured types who have little to do all day but snipe and bicker and presume airs & graces over others. Theirs is the essentially lonely materialism of a world where fear of poverty is actually greater than desire for wealth, such that it becomes fear of the poor themselves - as if the latter had a communicable disease.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

99

40%

Rather a weak film about a usually successful gambler who exploits winning streaks and avoids losing ones. Yet, his life is a hand to mouth existence evading debtors and violent loan sharks and his looking to lose mentality.

It is also a comedy but the jokes fall a little flat because the Laurel and Hardy type pairing on offer here have little actual chemistry and the latter love story suffers from the same lack of emotional credibility.

The movie is too long for its rather thin premise. The film is filmed in master shots that are unable, because of the distance of the camera from the actors, to evoke intimacy – either between the characters or between the film and its audience. Thus, the characters never come alive because the actors are not really allowed to shine. The running jokes fall somewhat flat because they lack dramatic resonance.

The only aspect of this movie resembling a theme is that by equating gambling to being unpatriotic, leaving everything to fate rather than deliberate choice, is equated to the immorality of not taking personal responsibility for ones own actions. However, the film itself falls into this trap by cobbling a script together from newspaper headlines rather than relying on any genuinely imaginative faculty of the screenwriters.

This is little more than a sequence of stylistic tropes that never amount to much more than mere rhetorical flourishes in a movie that lacks a story, suspense and, indeed, a point.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Jolson Story

40%

Sentimental beyond belief, this refuses to analyze any complex issues, especially the essentially racist nature of minstrelsy when practiced by Whites. Unlike Sacher COHEN's Ali G & Borat creations, this is extremely politically simplistic. Yet Larry PARKS is very good in the central role that briefly made his name and the music is very enjoyable.

Al JOLSON's gift was in acting out his songs and not just in singing them. He successfully undercuts the simpering sentimentality of much of his material with light humor and spontaneous wit. At his best when connecting with a live audience, his Freudian mammy fixation becomes a plausible entertainment where you stop asking the uncomfortable questions about a grown man seemingly unable to connect with a woman his own age.

This is a White American Dream type musical where success is achieved with little effort or struggle with the result that the characters are correspondingly thinly drawn. High octane acting only partly compensates for the lack of dramatic conflict that was no doubt motivated by the fact that Al Jolson was still alive when the film was made and contributed to its voice. This fear of defaming a living person also may have effected the film's pacing because it is all on a top note - with very little variation for nearly two hours. The downbeat ending is far too little; far too late in the verisimilitude stakes to compensate for the cloying nature of the proceedings.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Forbidden Planet

60%

A visually-impressive old-time sci-fi movie hampered by leaden direction and somewhat banal acting: More money was obviously spent on the SFX than the performers. The only exception here is Anne FRANCIS who really enjoys her role of both ingénue and virginal intriguer.

The story is an old one of the alleged subconscious having an effect in the actual world as an old man's daughter discovers her sexuality upon meeting fit young men from the space corps. His id wants to destroy them and tries to prevent them from taking his daughter away because his unconscious mind will not let her go. This leads to an explosive climax that can be beaten by only few modern movies of its kind.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Christmas Tale

60%

Clever black comedy of manners in which the current (2008) cream of French acting talent mostly express their emotions openly – often to camera – no matter who gets hurt.

A bone marrow transplant is used as a metaphor for the interrelatedness of family but never rises – as a thematic trope – above the trite notion that blood is thicker than water.

The style of the film changes to match the emotions displayed and so is varied. Yet there is actual emotional self indulgence here especially as the result of the over length and the lack of any real psychological depth. The only genuine hook onto which to hang ones interest is the fact that the movie is good at showing how women so often rule the domestic sphere; being here shown as alternately self deluded and wise – especially about men. Despite all this, the wit carries the day and makes it at least watchable.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Apartment

80%

A vigorous and satirical critique of the materialistic hypocrisy usually associated with sexual promiscuity and marital infidelity. Most of the married men here are completely incapable of keeping their hands off women half their age and most of the girls delude themselves into thinking that they will divorce their wives for them. Also a solid satire on the regimentation and routinisation of office life.

As you would expect from Billy WILDER, the humor is sharp and witty and the satire focuses on the choices we all must make between love and career. Much of the comedy centers around a neighbor's belief that Jack LEMMON is sleeping with all and sundry when his apartment is actually being used by five of his senior office colleagues for their amorous trysts. His meteoric rise to the executive suite is purely the result of this sexual sub letting not any relevant business acumen on his part and he finds himself in love with one of the kept women which could upset the whole cosy arrangement. Deep down this is one of the finest romantic comedies ever made because it is grounded in solid monochrome reality rather than fantasy.

LEMMON is his usual nebbish self; while Shirley MacLAINE steals the show with a performance of great subtlety as the depressive elevator girl with a heart of gold. Fred MacMURRAY plays against type as her amoral, married lover.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

State of Play (2003)

60%

Rather too many characters for its own good and a plot that floats around rather too much make this a bright and breezy political whodunit - but little more. The writer cannot decide whether the emphasis should be on the political machinations or just the murder mystery. This indecision means the mystery is trite while the political underpinnings – that could have made the drama more compelling from the outset – are left to the end; when it is far too late to get us excited either way. Because of this, this serial is really not about anything much more than brazenly filling tv schedules with an overlong thriller whose length, thus, has far less to do with the weight of the story or any serious ideas expressed. It is complicated as a direct result of an attempt to vainly conceal the fact that it is over warmed, hackneyed tripe.

The journalism procedural aspect of the drama is fascinating to watch as the journalists slowly obtain information from unwilling witnesses with smart subterfuge. However, this is not enough to justify the six episode length in its lacking a certain subtlety and wit with its plot heaviness and limited character development. The meandering nature of the story leaves it bereft of political insight as to either the machinations of power or the purpose of such intrigue – and there is little point to a drama that does not deal with human motivations. This works is decidedly unfocussed but just compelling enough to make you see it through to the final unmasking of the killer.

Some very good actors are wasted on a weak script, with the sole exception of Marc WARREN as a desperately scared for his life informer in chief. He sweatily communicates his fear as he continually changes his story to help cover his own misdeeds and fear of violent retribution from those he informs on. He rises well above the weak material.

The epileptic camerawork – as usual – adds nothing to the drama's credibility and only makes the audience see how hard the filmmakers are trying to make this all seem up to the minute and topically relevant. The characterizations are thin and the style adds no emotional or psychological dimension to the proceedings. The Hollywood cinema remake is much better because it distils what is best here by trimming all the fat and leaving only the lean.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Salò

80%

A vivid depiction of the depravity attendant upon using others as means rather than ends as well of unthinkingly following orders. This movie does not shy away from the implications of its theme: Humanity volitionally cut off from a positive purpose. It skillfully skirts the border between accurately analyzing degeneracy and being degenerate itself; its sordid catalogue of sexual perversions making it a profoundly repellant experience. However, given the charnel house that was the twentieth century, it is not without exceptional cinematic brilliance in its execution in being a film great power to haunt the mind of anyone who sees it.

The extreme content demands to be seen as a serious indictment of the Western world. Its excesses depict a materialistic and wealth obsessed culture that both consumes rubbish while producing great piles of it. The politically powerful have no power over their own desire to evade genuine political issues in favor of the vapid (& issue evading) freedom to consume anything in ever greater quantities. The relationship between sexual promiscuity and consumerism is here made explicit as people metaphorically and literally consume each other's bodies – especially the waste products.

A deeply and profanely political work, it is a call to action for Communists like its director (Pier Paolo PASOLINI) to see what the West as it really is and to do something constructive about it. However, this is the movie's partial failing: It presents the world in all it unpleasantness but without offering a credible alternative. An obsession with attacking the allegedly sacred can often mar great works such as this, nevertheless, the satire on the modern Western bourgeoisie is a devastatingly accurate one.

If ever there were proof that the Marquis de Sade and his followers were fools, madmen and the morally bankrupt, then this is it. It understands the insatiable–because never satisfied nature of those who find no pleasure in human warmth; hence, the emotionally distant shooting style that matches the depraved emotionally distancing themselves from others. They busily conflate pain with pleasure to vainly abolish the difference: 'When I see others degraded I rejoice' – yet they want to be both 'executioner and victim'. They cling to existence because they can achieve worldly success by blackmailing others to betray one another in exchange for preferential (or, at the very least, less harsh) treatment. Here "Rational" means "Unempathetic" in this masterpiece on the essential depravity of social engineering.

The work stands as a heartfelt plea from a man who personally experienced some of the events portrayed in the dying days of Mussolini's Italy. A strangely poetic drama – part self loathing; partly an expression of rage at a world that does not meet ones high ideals – that even the most jaded viewer will find shocking.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Chungking Express

40%

A great sprawling mess of a film that starts badly and goes nowhere from there.

Two lovelorn police officers are on the lookout for love but are unable to find it for looking in the wrong places. Their various girlfriends are hard to pin down, as they tend to leave at a moment's notice or without giving any notice at all; reflecting the general fecklessness of the central characters, themselves.

The travel metaphor of one of the policeman's two girlfriends being air stewardesses - who search for fulfilment but only find it at home - is well done, but little else is. The drug smuggling scenes are poorly integrated with the overall design and we appear to be watching two completely different films.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Jolson Sings Again

40%

This sequel to The Jolson Story deals no more realistically with the price of fame that, again, is a very great pity because Parks is an impressive actor who impersonates Jolson brilliantly.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

CHE: Part 2

80%

A well acted and directed, matter of fact biography of a political rebel. Terrorism is largely explained here as a direct and inevitable response to the US imperialism that creates the very terrorism it claims to be fighting in the first place. This is Bin Laden with a more human face and argues that those who do not wish for revolutions should endeavor to stop fomenting them. As the UK royal family have avoided a French style republican revolution simply by both changing - and by appearing to change – with the times.

Aware of the permanent nature of all revolutions if they are to be any way successful, this movie understands the difference between mere involvement and full on commitment. Like Nelson Mandela, this sober biopic is as committed to its subject as would be any true bringer of change in the real world of politics. "Che" Guevara was a unique terrorist who transcended his ideology to become a popular Western icon as recognizable as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. His appeal coming from this very fact of his being a political activist who risked his life for his beliefs; proving both his commitment and his credentials for martyrdom. Despite his great popularity, it is hard to imagine Osama Bin Laden having anything like the same cultural impact.

Benicio Del Toro is his usual brilliant self who, through his own charisma, gets across the sexual charisma that Guevara must have possessed to have been such an influential (& the ultimate) freedom fighter.

Where this film fails a little is in being a somewhat flat presentation of an interesting historical character: It is far too interested in historical authenticity at the expense of audience empathy. But, perhaps, given the biopic's traditional rejection of actual historical facts – especially the Hollywood ones - this is a price well worth paying.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

CHE: Part 1

80%

A well acted and directed, matter of fact biography of a political rebel. Terrorism is largely explained here as a direct and inevitable response to the US imperialism that creates the very terrorism it claims to be fighting in the first place. This is Bin Laden with a more human face and argues that those who do not wish for revolutions should endeavor to stop fomenting them. As the UK royal family have avoided a French style republican revolution simply by both changing - and by appearing to change – with the times.

Aware of the permanent nature of all revolutions if they are to be any way successful, this movie understands the difference between mere involvement and full on commitment. Like Nelson Mandela, this sober biopic is as committed to its subject as would be any true bringer of change in the real world of politics. "Che" Guevara was a unique terrorist who transcended his ideology to become a popular Western icon as recognizable as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. His appeal coming from this very fact of his being a political activist who risked his life for his beliefs; proving both his commitment and his credentials for martyrdom. Despite his great popularity, it is hard to imagine Osama Bin Laden having anything like the same cultural impact.

Benicio Del Toro is his usual brilliant self who, through his own charisma, gets across the sexual charisma that Guevara must have possessed to have been such an influential (& the ultimate) freedom fighter.

Where this film fails a little is in being a somewhat flat presentation of an interesting historical character: It is far too interested in historical authenticity at the expense of audience empathy. But, perhaps, given the biopic's traditional rejection of actual historical facts – especially the Hollywood ones - this is a price well worth paying.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Comrades

100%

An impressive achievement on a low budget, this is ultimately a human and humane drama about the human face. They loom large throughout and offer us glimpses into character - and great character acting. They determine our own emotional allegiances and those of the characters surveyed; while forming the basis for the entire plot and story. Moreover, the landscape itself is a character in its own right that supports the human figures in this deeply rural context via the expressive photography.

Unsurprisingly, the Anglican Church is collaborating with the rich to keep the poor subservient and landless; while sermonizing on each man keeping his place that appointed him of god. This is, of course, a film about boat rockers from whom the dramatic conflicts shown spring. This film is a hymn to strong leadership and communal values: A theme of which it never loses sight despite its length. It is also a hymn of praise to the expressive possibilities of cinema itself.

The narrative progression is both parallel and chronological in its poetically non linear way. This is a slow moving and beautiful experience – both in an ethical and in an aesthetic sense. The film is shot as a silent movie with emotions conveyed largely by bodily movement and facial expression. Plus, the different acting styles convey different moods in a movie part of whose brilliance lies in the extremely deft casting choices, particularly Robin SOANS as the rebel leader.

The cheerful anachronisms of the single finger, the poor characters' good teeth, breaking the fourth wall and the modern dialogue are all experimental ways of helping the director (Bill DOUGLAS) make these people real to us now. Furthermore, the movie comments on its own illusionism with the Brechtian leitmotif of an itinerant magic lantern show using the same actor (the brilliantly versatile Alex NORTON) for the characters that comment on the action - and sometimes take part in it. By appearing in various guises, NORTON enables this entire bag of cinematic tricks to cohere into a political masterpiece – all the more effective because it does not ram its various points down our throats.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Heat and Dust

80%

An interesting and quiet film about a romantic White Englishwoman abroad in British India who finds the sexual, social and racial snobbery stifling. Her affair with a nawab causes a scandal for others but happiness to herself; vindicating her decision to spend the rest of her days with the Indian governor.

The playing and writing are all subtle and tick all the right boxes even if the film is a little overlong. The underrated Greta SCACCHI, in particular, is excellent as the pretty young thing in love with all things Indian who is seen as vile by those who believe English women should be seen and not heard. The racism depicted borders on treating the Whites as stereotypes yet this manages to convey the strict self repression necessary when one considers oneself better (without evidence) than others. Any such chink in this self imposed emotional armor will always be noticed by someone; leading to immediately being labeled as a non pukka memsahib by revealing that you are just as human as anyone else. The emotional retardation caused by such an attitude is well presented in comic form as an obvious social falseness - especially well portrayed by Susan FLEETWOOD at her Joyce GRENFELL best.

Ultimately a movie about Whites being seduced by the apparent mystery of India - both literally and metaphorically - that implicitly evokes and explicitly critiques the superficial materialism of the Western world.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Meet the Parents

60%

An interesting ethnic-, social-class clash comedy that draws clear distinctions between Jewish warmth & spontaneity and WASP aloofness & emotional retardation.

The premise of an untrusting father and his would-be son-in-law is a universal theme that is not, however, fully explored in favour of intricate and amusing slapstick. The so-called circle-of-trust of the WASP family is really an incentive to create a circle-of-deceit as his children lie to him because of his emotionally possessive paranoia - which they hope telling him lies will help them escape.

Snobbery is well represented by the daughter being enjoined not to marry someone who earns less than they think he should to keep her in the style to which she was raised. And Ben STILLER is comical as he tries to compete on equal terms with those who earn far more than he does. Yet the more he lies, the bigger a hole he digs for himself.

Ultimately, the charm of this movie springs from the simple fact that his love for his fiancée is genuine. If only that emotional commitment had been better foregrounded, this could have been a comedy classic instead of a mediocre attempt at a comedy of manners.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Cherry, Harry & Raquel!

60%

AS LONG AS THEIR FLESH REMAINS FIRM…
Somewhat incoherent plotting but the girls are fetching and the thin drug smuggling plot allows for a lot of bloody gunplay amidst the playful carnality.

Where Russ MEYER gets so much right about human sexuality lies in his Carry On understanding of the essentially libidinous nature of women. And the difficulty men have in keeping up with their insatiable demands. Without this full appreciation, his films would fall as flat as a pancake. And for sheer fleshy exuberance, these girls cannot be beaten.

The film also begins with a political tract against the dangers of both censorship and of trying to control the lives of others through invidious resentment at their lack of anhedonia. It also begins (& ends) with a moral homily about the dangers the young are exposed to through the morally empty and, thus, thrill seeking nature of the capitalist West. MEYER's surreal flair for incongruous – yet somehow fitting – images is well to the fore here as well.

Common Law Cabin (aka How Much Loving Does A Normal Couple Need?) is a mess made by an apparent Russ MEYER impersonator who lacks the wit, style and imagination of the better artist he is pastiching. The usual preoccupations with the desert, sexism, racism, phallic & vulval objects and rapacious women are in evidence but never form a coherent whole that one can fully appreciate or relish.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Ghosts of the Abyss

40%

There are too many superlatives uttered by those appearing here to adequately compensate for the simple fact that a sea grave, in itself, is not that interesting a subject for documentary. That this is the Titanic makes little difference since the story is very well known and has been thoroughly trawled for angles before.

To completely save this film from being one about nothing more than a famous ship corroding three kilometers down at the bottom of the Atlantic, CGI superimposes actors as ghosts on the exterior and interior shots of this elegant vessel. This is fun but does not really make up for the fact that the well worn cliches about the titanic are still being replayed: Man's hubris, social snobbery, alleged Edwardian elegance.

If only the filmmakers had had – moreover - the courage to let the images speak for themselves without the relentless barrage of "oh, wows" and "my Gods" this would have actually been an informative piece. The scientists masquerade as big children with expensive scientific toys; conveying little useful factual data save their narcissistic desire for foregrounding their rather trite emotions. Yet the images of the Titanic's interior are spooky enough to convey a sense of a technological marvel laid waste and the sense that, at any moment, a rotted corpse is going to float past the camera. That this never (& could never) happen does not detract in the least from the suspense conjured up by the very thought that it might.

That a film director of James CAMERON's stature should associate himself with this dreck is difficult to fathom since he knows pictures speak louder than words. Yet here the old truism is reversed; revealing what a pointless documentary this really is.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Barefoot Gen

80%

Apart from the repetition, this is high quality stuff indeed.

The characters are amply formed and the politics fully explained – even for the non Japanese; making the social milieu convincing and believable.

The hardships of living in a rapidly declining totalitarian and conformist state are detailed to build up a solid picture of why Japan began the Pacific War and why it – and all militaristic empires – ultimately failed.

Being told through the eyes of a child brilliantly highlights the emotional affect of the story of the atom bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Eighteen

40%

An interesting and stylish calling card film that should get the director more work in Hollywood, but not a great movie in itself. The writer lacks insight into human nature leaving the audience with a string of arbitrary plot movements that do not illuminate character while simply presenting rather superficial and wishful thinking ideas about human communication. He is also unable to write idiomatic English such that English characters use Americanisms and swearing comes out of their mouths no matter what the characters' emotional states.

The acting here is variable with only Clarence SPONAGLE and Paul ANTHONY out against the general grayness and sheer naiveté of the plot, themes and basic premise. They are likely well known actor names of the future. The sleaziness is no more than a pose since we are offered no rationale for it; not to mention ideas and dialogue stolen from other, better movies. There is a strong sense that this is not a story that results from any lived truth: A rehearsal for a better drama.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Goldfinger

80%

One of the all time best ever Bonds: Solid entertainment of a very high order. Sean CONNERY is at his virile best here as the heroic man of action; the girls are all very fetching; &, the villain and his henchman (Odd Job) suitably threatening.

Crucially all of the females are Bond's counterparts (rather than good looking but vapid) who exist as separate characters in their own right rather than as psychological dependants of the hero. This is crucial in the best 007s since to do otherwise devalues the masculinity of the hero. He is in fact more dependent on their sex appeal to masculinise him than they are on his sex appeal to feminize them. Paradoxically we thus learn more about him through them than about them through him. This is an extremely useful means of counteracting Connery's mediocre acting skills. Moreover and unusually, the leading female role (Honor BLACKMAN's Pussy Galore) is played by someone older than the lead rather than younger; making a nice change from the expected formula.

The pacing of the earlier scenes is refreshingly slow; allowing for more character development, understatement and the all important humor – especially of the self parodic kind.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Stagecoach

80%

A superior western by anybody's standards despite a deus ex machina ending that eventually became too much of a cliché for its own dramatic good. This one shot John WAYNE to stardom and made westerns respectable for serious dramatic storytelling. The ensemble performances are all excellent especially a framed for murder WAYNE; an aloof gambler (John CARRADINE); a pompous, embezzling banker (Berton CHURCHILL); an alcoholic physician (Thomas MITCHELL); &, a prostitute (Claire TREVOR).

Stagecoach is superbly made in every respect, layering humor and sharp characterization into an exciting plot that includes a spectacularly photographed chase in Monument Valley. Nearly a perfect movie and certainly the first great modern Western. Instead of good-guy / bad-guy conflict, Stagecoach emphasizes characterization, social commentary and moral drama.

This is a true classic because most of the characters are archetypes – not stereotypes – so that we get involved in the lives of these very real people. The greatest enjoyment in watching Stagecoach is in observing how director John FORD builds and populates his moral universe, in seeing complex personalities sketched in simple words and gestures; his great theme: Self respect.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Rock On!!

80%

This is about unfinished and unfulfilled teenage dreams that come to haunt one in adult life; by examining the negative consequences of not developing one's talent fully.

This is also the story of a woman trying to understand her emotionally distant husband whom – she discovers – relinquished his rock 'n' roll dream to become an investment banker. She wonders if her unhappy spouse really loves her and the fact that her pregnancy makes her anxiously hesitant to tell him of it. Will trying to rekindle his interest in rock music make him open up, emotionally, and put their marriage back on track?

Here, your dreams stop chasing you the moment you stop running away from them in this well-scripted and well acted drama about the gestalt of friendship and group music creation. The essential dramatic conflict here lies between adult responsibility and obligations - or following one's dreams.

For once, in a Bollywood musical, the music springs naturally and relevantly from the drama since the film is actually about musicians. As well as being about the creative compromises that most negatively affect the most creative and the most talented. One cannot possess everything, but how does one know best what to do before one has enough life experience upon which to base one's choices?

This movie uses its Hollywood cliches imaginatively and makes them work within the context of a different culture; weaving them into the very fabric of the film. Although the characterization is too weak for its length, you find yourself rooting for the protagonists, come what may.

The acting is fine throughout and the music is toe tappingly good. The theme of unfulfilled dreams leading to emotional death is well handled as is that of setting priorities based upon whom one is. The only real problem here is one of length - since the film does begin to wane before the emotionally explosive climax.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Black Snake

80%

Here, Blacks help Whites enslave Blacks by a process of political divide 'n' conquer; Whites fight among themselves for Most Self Righteous Christian Award; &, Russ MEYER handles more serious subject matter than usual with his customary humorously melodramatic aesthetic. Unusually, his anti Christian bias has somewhat mellowed into recognition of the crucial role played by Christianity in paradoxically wanting to abolish the very institution – slavery – it originally supported. The christianized slaves here are more Christian than the white Christians who initially enslaved them: A subtle point well made.

Despite expository dialogue and a gallery of cost saving and/or deliberate anachronisms – modern rifles in 1835 and modern slang – the latter stresses the contemporary relevance of White racism; making the whole an emotionally plausible race relations' drama. The moral corruption both implied and shown is as endemic as it is mutual since the British Empire was based on racist exploitation with the necessity of Black collaboration.

Appropriately, the white actors are deliriously over the top; visually expressing the emotional hysteria, physical brutality, alcoholism & sexual impotence usually associated with parasitism. Whites are shown as sexually twisted because they have repressed their emotions to enable them to treat other human beings as slaves. Conversely, the Black actors are required to get across the political and moral subtleties involved.

Percy HERBERT is especially excellent; projecting alternately physical fear and emotional sadism. His performance effectively displays the hysteria designed to induce fear of violence in slaves while not actually meting it out on a large scale since, to do so, could create unproductive slaves; that is, dead ones. While Bernard BOSTON as Captain Raymond Daladier perfectly encapsulates the opportunist Black who blows with the White political wind. David WARBECK – not without good reason – acts as if he is in a broad farce which, to some extent, he is.

It is unusual for a White to write, produce and direct something so politically astute and psychologically perspicacious on a subject so shaming and guilt inducing to Whites as this. Nevertheless, he does it rather well by using archetypal characterizations and solid thematic content.

The movie only lets itself down by an absurdly naïve coda referring to the 'firestorm of a new moral [eg, egalitarian] conception'. This clearly implies that the old conception was moral when the film has spent all its running time saying just the opposite!


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Gomorrah

60%

A naturalistic and unglamorous portrayal of the Naples' Camorra where violence can suddenly erupt at any moment and for well understood reasons. The docudrama desire here is to show a world unlike that shown in a typical Hollywood movie by eliminating any suspense. This also has the unfortunate effect of removing any real narrative drive and of not answering fundamental questions such as the Why, rather than what is shown here: The How and the What.

Crucially, moreover, the cinéma vérité style has an emotionally distancing effect that allows for little empathy for the characters and their political and cultural predicament. The five plot strands exacerbate this and do not integrate well – they seem merely designed to make the film longer and wider without making it deeper.

Having said all that, the performances are as committed as they need to be for this breed of tough drama. The kind of drama that blows the lid on the fallacy of With Us or Against Us – a belief that, in the long run, can only serve to get people killed.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Troy

40%

A milquetoast Paris and a drippy Helen are not really the center of this movie. However, they should have been given that they are the catalysts for all the action following their running away together - from her husband. The eventual hard earned respect in the combative relationship between Achilles and Hector must suffice to compensate for the lackluster love story. Nevertheless, all the performers are simply overwhelmed by the sumptuous production design allied to the fact that their characters are weakly written and blandly performed, anyway, because there is a hell of lot of miscasting going on here.

The morbid pontificating on loyalty, self respect and honor leads to no abundant understanding of the nature of these human qualities. Achilles is a classic anti hero who finds himself lumbered with his inferiors because he has few equals. He possesses no true loyalty and so is essentially self serving and neurotic: One longs for his death while admiring his fearsome martial skills. His glory is bound up with his inevitable doom since he fights for the sake of fighting as well as to prove that personal allegiances are meaningless. Yet, without loyalty, there is no honor and without a full exploration of dramatic themes there is no real drama.

HOMER would have hated it.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Spy Kids

80%

Clever Bond parody - for all the family - that successfully manages to be about the family, itself, and why it needs protecting. It also hints at why parenting is the most difficult job of all since the fate of the world is always in grave danger from parents who produce monsters bent on world domination.

Coming over as a visually imaginative crossing of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, The Incredibles & True Lies, this is a movie that easily defies and transcends its own limited genre. The additional bonus is an ethnic mixing which matches that of the leading actor Antonio BANDERAS and his director Robert RODRIGUEZ; while implicitly offering a vision of a world where familial bonds are stronger than anything. The villain defying laser beam hidden in a wedding ring being a case in point.

The only hard to avoid flaw is that the two siblings here are very good but not precocious enough for adult audiences to take them as seriously as the adult players are taken. This dramatic imbalance makes the grown ups long to see what the adults are getting up to more than the eponymous kids – otherwise, this exceptional film would have been truly great.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Good Woman

80%

A witty look at sexual relations among the monied classes whose only real flaw is a certain inability to match its superficial style with its substance.

The gossipy females in abundance here are simply jealous that their lives are somewhat less interesting than the lives of those they so fervently gossip about. This leads to the central conflict between those who take people as they find them and those who see others only through hearsay; thus refusing to use their own independent judgment.

Helen HUNT is quite brilliant as the kept woman and makes of Tom WILKINSON an ideal companion. She dominates proceedings as the independent woman who readily fascinates men and is thus able to make the best of herself in a world with few choices for clever women.

Ultimately, this movie is about forgiveness of sins: 'Every saint has a past; every sinner a future.' It is also a quiet and unassuming disquisition on living without regret - by taking personal responsibility for one's actions – and the personal integrity that can come from realizing that no one is perfect, nor is required to be.

Oscar Wilde's limited sexual wit is not as profound as a Carry On film but his wordplay is certainly cleverer formalistically: It is just as funny and just as woman centered.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Fire

60%

A film that correctly points out that adherence to customs is little more than the response of a monkey to a bell. And that a sole reliance on traditions is a hopeless way to retain a culture in a desired given state. Nevertheless, this inherent wish to rebel against the past can so easily be conflated with a rebellion against duty and responsibility – both of which are far more important and far more serious. There is also the danger here that the flouted traditions are not replaced with something possessing more meaning; that one can be a rebel for being a rebel's sake.

Here, the old look on as the young flout the guidelines by which the old have lived all their lives. The Indian culture depicted becomes Westernized with all the benefits – wealth, improved standards of living, etc – and the disbenefits – materialism, seeing people as means to end rather than ends, etc. All of this is bound up in the story of two women having an affair because their respective marriages are unsatisfactory - on so many levels.

The cultural and political tensions shown here are endemic to all cultures since they must all adapt or die. And yet the purpose of tradition is precisely to avoid such adaptation. Those who resentfully follow custom are shown as seeking revenge on those who have the courage to flout them. The criticism of the Buddhist concept of abolishing desire to abolish evil is palpable since such a desire is itself a desire; albeit one that ultimately leads to emotional death – for only the dead are free of desire. The trial by fire shown here (taken from Hindu mythology) is that which reveals moral impurity if one is consumed by the fire; ones purity, if one is not.

The characterization is a little bland because the actors are, while the themes are not fully explored by the screenwriter. However, the style helps overcome some of these problems in helping us get under the skin of what it is to be a woman in a culture in rapid transit from Third to First World status.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Deer Hunter

80%

Superior British soap opera and totally engrossing in its tale of ordinary people making the best of what their culture throws at them. It plays inthree distinct sections and takes you to hell and back.

There is no rush to develop the characters in a leisurely paced movie that lets the acting breathe naturally. This is a rare drama whose exposition is actually seen as an essential part of it rather than something to sit through before the action really begins. How each character responds to the same event is much more important than the event itself because of the personality so astutely revealed thereby. Moreover, the landscapes against which the various personalities interact become characters in their own right since the industrial, mountainous & jungle landscapes are vividly contrasted and compared in the same way. This is proper visual storytelling of a high order; allowing for a deep understanding of the people portrayed and, therefore, a profound emotional engagement with them. The friendship between the three central characters, as well as their shared association with the men from their small hometown, is truthful and realistic in a way that also makes this deeply blokish as opposed to absurdly macho.

Yet, despite the epic over length of the movie, there is also dramatic concision when necessary (to avoid an over indulgence in gore) in brilliantly using Russian roulette as a metaphor worthy of a Shakespeare for war's often traumatically-brutalising affects. However, some of the plotting is a little odd as dramatic necessity trumps credibility and it, unfortnately, has a determinedly one-sided point of view. The director (Michael CIMINO) is essentially a mediocre filmmaker who happened to get lucky with this one film and its topflight cast. He managed to fashion a superb family melodrama about the relationship between the familial and the wider society. A film that is especially poignant about the breakdown in the relationship between the two that actually threatens these particular families (& the family as such) as happened in the US during the Vietnam War. Despite its suffering the family is healed by the very act of staying together and by reaffirming the positive relationship to the wider national family. Yet the movie is subtle enough to ask its audience the most relevant question of all: What price patriotism? And its answer is that it is clearly a high one.

Robert DE NIRO and Meryl STREEP are particularly excellent as shy lovers whose slow paced courtship perfectly complements the film's mood, tone & pacing. Together with their beautifully crafted love theme, you will find few tear jerking and character driven British films better than this.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Spiral

80%

A realistic (yet strangely melodramatic) cop drama that uses a desaturated color scheme to emphasize its gritty realism and actors that do not seem to wear makeup. The visual style is gory to disgusting but this stresses character via the implied motivations behind such heinous criminality. Moreover, the visual excess is married to a judicious mixing of litotes and suggested carnality.

The acting (especially Caroline PROUST), characters, dialogue, situations and relationships are very well played by all and keep one glued to the tv set as they never stray from the straight and narrow of everyday reality. Because it is impossible to strictly separate law enforcement from law breaking, we find many of the characters are not as squeaky clean as they might otherwise appear. The endemic and systemic nature of crime in the West means that absolutely anyone could be a perpetrator: A cop, a lawyer, an immigrant, a judge, a prostitute, a government minister. There is no true separation between criminal and law abider here and this adds layers of interrelationships to the already morally complex dramaturgy and mise en scène that focuses on a single murder for an entire series with various digressions for minor issues. Our desire to eliminate crime is matched by our desire not to report the wrongdoing of anyone known to us personally. Sso we accept a certain level of criminality as natural – especially in ourselves.

This series deals effectively with the emotional affects of events rather more than the physical causes - the former is the basis of all good drama while the latter merely acts as dramaturgical catalyst. This drama does not feel the need for the characters to brandish firearms at the drop of a hat in case the audience is going to fall asleep and is all the more exciting for it.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Lavender Hill Mob

80%

Very funny comedy about a bank heist that goes inevitably wrong. The fantasies of the mild mannered, the timid and the fantasists are affectionately lampooned to reveal the essential emptiness of the criminally minded. And despite the cleverness of their robbery plan, the leader of the gang is unable to change it as and when the situation demands; leading to the entire gang's eventual collapse.

Apart from being cleverly plotted and amusingly written, the comic performers all rise to the occasion to present clearly defined characters. Alec GUINNESS, Stanley HOLLOWAY, Sidney JAMES and Alfie BASS all make the film the entrancing and bright & breezy comedy it is.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.

Class

80%

An interesting dissection of Western issues of ethnicity, class, sex and culture seen against the background of an inner city school.

Here, compulsory education exists to control the poor that the White bourgeoisie fear – as a form of collective punishment for being different. This spills over into the condescending manner in which non Whites and women of all cultures are treated.

Yet the children are not stupid and can see that their education provides them with little of value. They also know that the pedagogic institution within which they work possesses little real meaning to the way in which they live their lives. This is why education for most people is useless since it largely imparts bourgeois values they do not and cannot share rather than actually being a means of self improvement.

Thus no matter how good the teachers are, the system is fatally flawed and the teachers are ultimately shown as having feet of clay precisely because of this. Not treating adolescents as potential adults provides them with little incentive to behave as such; necessitating the introduction of draconian disciplinary codes. These latter would not be needed if the education were neither compulsory nor teacher centred nor lacking in a proper balance between keeping order and education.

The conflict between the typical teenage desire for self definition and the teachers' ultimate desire for control is also well shown. The performers are precocious, spontaneous and natural; being the main reason to watch. They are all clearly defined characters in their own right and never give the impression that they are acting in a movie which, to the extent that they are appearing in a semi documentary, they aren't.

Although exceptionally good at stating the problem in clear terms, this movie proposes no solutions.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.