char treuse

Big, bubbly, euphoria-filled musical based on John Waters' most accessible, even beloved, 1988 film. There's not a bum number in the Marc Shaiman/Scott Wittman Broadway score, all wonderfully enhanced in this soundtrack, brilliantly lampooning a variety of 60s pop styles and Broadway classic showtunes. (Sadly, three numbers were trimmed for time.) An excellent cast of young talent and old vets, notably Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken (who knew he was such a good dancer?) and Allison Janney. Divine left big fluffy slippers to fill and, though I had my reservations, John Travolta fills them nicely indeed, bringing new depth to the Edna Turnblad character. When it comes time for Edna to bust a move, we're in delicious anticipation; this IS Travolta after all! And we're not left disappointed by his showmanship. Newcomer Nikki Blonsky stars as Tracy, Edna's urban Gidget-as-chubette daughter, whose optimism and idealism transform the existence of those around her in Kennedy-era Baltimore. Addictive, gotta-sing-gotta-dance, Technicolor hullabaloo with a positive message that'll have you wanting to move your feet and sing out, Louise. Welcome to the Sixties!

Johnny Guitar, as played by Sterling Hayden, is but a secondary character to Joan Crawford's Vienna in this star-vehicle Western unlike any other. Crawford's nemesis is Mercedes McCambridge's Emma Small, and all the menfolk kowtow to these women, basically p-whipped throughout. This 1954 film has correctly been called both an allegory about McCarthyism and a Freudian parable.

Crawford is referred to as "more man than woman" early in the film, but she becomes feminized by the closing credits as she smiles, staring lovingly into Johnny Guitar's eyes. Taking place over 3 days, Act 1/Day 1 is set almost completely within Vienna's saloon. We first see Vienna in a mannish black outfit: blouse, slacks & boots. Later, rekindling her affair with Johnny, she is seen in a burgundy nightgown under a parted black cape, her passion beginning to show. By the end of the second Act/Day 2, Vienna is dressed in a white gown, purified by the love she has cast out of her life. She becomes a Christ figure when betrayed by a Judas in her midst and sentenced to hang (crucifixion).

Rescued by Johnny, Crawford is resurrected and must don a man's outfit on the third Day/Act 3 -- yellow shirt, blue jeans -- and ultimately duel to the death with Emma, a mannish and sexually inhibited woman who may well be seen as her "other half," as they strap on their six-shooters. (Phallic symbolism anyone?) Character motivation in this film oftentimes seems demented and Joan's emotions turn on a dime. But the film's fascinating realism lies in its subtext of sexual identity.

A film in which the cowboys are named Dancing Kid, Corey, Turkey and Johnny Guitar, and in which the women exhibit more machismo than the men, is certainly toying with gender. Johnny Guitar plays and the Dancing Kid -- whose admiration for Johnny turns to aggression -- dances for him with Emma in a waltz of sexual ambiguity.

Vividly directed by Nicholas Ray, this is, in a sense, the "Brokeback Mountain" of its day; audacious and groundbreaking.

An extremely charming fantasy from Disney with accents straight out of an Irish Spring commercial. Darby O'Gill, teller of tall tales, captures the king of the leprechauns and hopes to get his pot'o'gold. The cast of character actors are a delight to watch -- Albert Sharpe as Darby, Jimmy O'Dea as the leprechaun, Estelle Winwood, Kieron Moore, Walter Fitzgerald and Denis O'Dea. Sean Connery and Janet Munro ("The Crawling Eye") are the romantic leads. The ending, complete with scary banshees and a death coach, approaches the death of Bambi's mother on the childhood-traumameter, and will possibly leave adults and kids alike teary-eyed.

While a giant anaconda devours people whole, Jon Voight chews up the scenery in this monster movie that's better than average thanks to its game cast. Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, Owen Wilson and Jonathan Hyde slum along with Voight down the Amazon in this entertaining outing that moves along at a clip.

Time has rendered the CGI effects almost quaint; nonetheless, the film has its share of thrills and is, if nothing else, amusing, thanks largely to Voight's histrionic bad-guy.

Watching Voight get eaten, then regurgitated, by the title creature is certainly one of those guilty-pleasure movie moments.

This 1959 remake of the 1934 weeper glams up the Fanny Hurst story. Lana Turner's comeback in the wake of the Johnny Stompanato murder and director Douglas Sirk's American swan song, "Imitation of Life" is both deluxe Hollywood star vehicle and expressionistic auteur cinema.

"IoL" has a touchy issue at the core of its central drama. Released four years prior to the March on Washington, the film is, in good part, about race relations. Although detailing the friendship between two women, one black and one white, Lana is a glamorous, romantically desirable actress who attains super-stardom, swirling about in multiple drop-dead-gorgeous outfits. Juanita Moore, on the other hand, is plain, maternal, self-sacrificing and seemingly content to remain Lana's maid, schlepping around in frumpy frocks and cloth coats. Both women are mothers and, ironically, it is the black mother-and-daughter storyline that is the most interesting and best remembered.

Susan Kohner plays Ms Moore's light-skinned offspring, Sara Jane, determined to pass as white to the point of ditching her undeniably African-American mother. Kohner's desperation throughout is touching but it's her final scene that is guaranteed to make me cry every time I see this film, no matter how much hokum there is en route.

A somewhat overly peppy Sandra Dee assays the role of Lana's daughter, Susie. "You've given me everything a mother could, but the thing I wanted most -- your love," Miss Dee shouts, much to Lana's anguish, proving that white women have tsuris, too; all the main characters in this film have been chasing illusions (the "imitations of life") that only bring them sorrow.

In a bid to exploit Lana's real-life drama at the time -- another type of imitation of life to be certain -- the script calls for Susie to fall in love with Lana's boyfriend, Steve, portrayed by staggeringly stalwart John Gavin.

Another cinematic paean to a mother's love and sacrifices, "IoL" expertly hits a deep emotional chord with most viewers. On the way to the socko sentimental climax, however, there is much to be admired and to be entertained by: the use of Technicolor and widescreen to infer psychological states and the relationships between characters; Eleanore Griffin's dialog that never states something once if it can state it thrice for extra intensity ("I'm white! White! White!", "I'm not going up and down, up and down! I'm going up! And up! And up!"); Sara Jane's foolhardy downward spiral that results in her taking a job as a showgirl sipping from a chalice on a mobile lounge chair; and heartbreaking moments as when Sara Jane tells her mother, "And if we should pass on the street, just keep walking."

A clever look: imitation vintage B-movie in black and white; Steven Soderbergh's appropriate, artful gimmick for this film set in Berlin in the immediate aftermath of WWII.

Cate Blanchett turns in an apt theatrical performance given "The Bad German's" archly retro conceit. As the film's mother/whore femme fatale, Cate is sphinx-like, world-weary and made up like a drag queen at Mardi Gras. George Clooney, meanwhile, turns in his routine performance that is altogether too modern and casual. Put him in scrubs and he's ready again for the ER. Together, they create no chemistry nor any other natural science. Toby McGuire, as a sleazy, black-marketing GI, is so painfully hammy you'll find yourself begging for him to stop.

The storyline is awkwardly developed and unnecessarily opaque, its characters cold and remote. There's really nobody to cheer for or identify with; no emotions to hook us into this world. When was the last time that international intrigue, on-screen, was so unintriguing? It's too bad we've been served such an exciting cinematic look -- an overly lit, noir-like one -- only as window dressing on a story as bleak and dreary as the blitzkrieged landscapes on view.

"Haaaarrrryyy!"

The amplified, dispassionate female voice could have been Leona Helmseley in heat but, no, it belongs to Allison Hayes as Nancy Archer, the 50-Foot Woman of the title. In the most infamous role of her film career, Allison's performance literally rips off the roof. In fact, make that a couple of roofs.

Jaw-droppingly tacky, "Aot50FW" is the tale of Nancy, a neurotic, boozy heiress and her loveless Lothario husband, Harry (William Hudson, who also co-starred opposite The Amazing Colossal Man). Nancy has a close encounter of the third kind, in the desert, with a bald giant from outer space who wears a mini-skirt and gladiator sandals, and who has a thing for Nancy's jewelry. What he does to her once he's carried her off is probably best left a mystery, but soon Nancy starts to grow.

Treading into the center of town on tranquilizers, tightly wrapped in nothing but the bed sheets, the buxom giantess heads toward the low-rent saloon where Harry is having a few laughs with a floozy named Honey (Yvette Vickers). The confrontation turns ugly.

The Poverty Row f/x make the alien giant and Nancy appear to be transparent due to incompetently transposed images. You'll understand why director Nathan Juran changed his name to Nathan Hertz on the credits. Juran was no stranger to directing giant creatures, human and non, having also directed "The Deadly Mantis," "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," "Jack, the Giant Killer" plus several episodes of TV's "World of Giants" and "Land of the Giants."

A lot of laughs for all the wrong reasons.

"Tears of the Black Tiger" is a florid, mind-bending and highly cinematic parody of genres. East meets West and Sam Peckinpah meets Douglas Sirk in Wisit Sasanatieng's brilliant, highly stylized work.

In an outrageous palette of costumes, make-up, sets and colors (hot neons and cool pastels, some digitally manufactured), this is the tale of Rumpoey, a girl born into wealth, and her love for Dum, a peasant boy. As young adults, Dum (Thai heartthrob Chartchai Ngansam) joins a gun-slinging outlaw band known as The Tigers, while Rumpoey is betrothed to a slick, handsome police captain, Kumjorn.

Much of the film appears to be set in the early 1960s, though its outlaws are strictly of the American Wild West variety (albeit with hand-held rocket launchers). Imbued with a sense of great fun, "Tears of the Black Tiger" is camp, absurd, surreal, melodramatic and strangely poignant, served up in a sumptuous, candy-colored coating.

It is said Bette Davis commented that if she had found herself starring in "Trog," she'd commit suicide. Alas, poor Joan Crawford, who obviously felt she couldn't be fussy if she wanted the work, descended to this cut-rate, Herman Cohen-produced monster movie. Ironically released in the States by Warner Brothers (on the bottom half of a double-bill with "The Torture Garden"), the studio for which Ms Crawford made several of her hits including "Mildred Pierce", the only scary thing about "Trog" is the sight of a once-glamorous, legendary leading lady schlepping around in a lab coat (she plays an anthropologist), obviously tipsy as she slurs inane lines like "Trog lives on a diet of fish and lishardsh." Let's face it: under the circumstances, you'd drink, too.

Trog is cutesy for troglodyte: a primitive missing-link cave-dweller portrayed by a burly actor in an Alley Oop-like caveman get-up and an over-the-head, dime-store Halloween mask. Discovered by a hunky and shirtless, albeit unfortunate, team of spelunking college students, Trog is captured and put under the observation of Dr Brockton (Joan).

The true villain of this piece is Michael Gough (also slumming it), a representative of the opposing townspeople who, in a public confrontation with Joan, causes her to explode in a moment of impassioned fury. Regrettably, she does not give Gough her trademark slap in the face.

Trog eventually escapes to wreak some customary monster-movie havoc and Joan hunts him down with her "hypo-gun" across the bleak fields of the northern English countryside and down into his cavern, dressed in a smartly tailored tan jacket, slacks and boots ensemble.

Hollywood Royalty? Joan tries to maintain her dignity and poise despite having to deliver lines like, "Put the child down, Trog!" and occasionally looking a little woozy. This sad swan song to a long, brilliant career, amid the preposterous mise en scene, gives "Trog" the feeling of a tragi-comedy. Like one of her memorable screen characters, the real Joan Crawford endeavors to be strong and, ultimately, to triumph against all odds.

The best movie based on a Broadway musical since "Cabaret," "Dreamgirls" is simply dreamy. It's about the Rise and Fall of the Rainbow Records Empire (a fictionalized Motown), spanning the 1960s and '70s. The central drama involves the girl group, The Dreams, and the lives of its singers: Deena, Effie and Lorrell.

As Effie, Jennifer Hudson virtually steals the movie in the Jennifer Holiday stage role, making the show-stopper, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" her own. The number is the most eloquent, heart-wrenching nervous breakdown ever filmed and it signals the beginning of the end of Rainbow Records.

Written and directed by Bill Condon from a book and lyrics by Tom Eyen, music by Henry Krieger, the play's underlying gay sensibility remains intact. The Dreams are a mythical Supremes-like group (with a touch of Ronnie and Phil Spector thrown in as the marriage of Deena to Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx)), and their saga is nothing short of fabulous. The songs are mostly strong, though in the style of show tunes more than pop. They include new material from Krieger, including "Listen," Beyonce Knowles' big number. The film's look is rich and color-drenched, the emotions are big and the story a quickly moving epic, all with show costumes and wigs galore.

Like Condon's "Gods and Monsters", which was a point-perfect film treatment of Christopher Bramm's novel, "Father of Frankenstein," the choices made in the screen adaption of "Dreamgirls" are flawless. The sense of racial bigotry and strife surrounding the characters during turbulent times is definitely more strongly developed and powerfully portrayed in this movie.

It is doubtful you would leave this film emotionally untouched or aesthetically unimpressed.

p.s.: Eddie Murphy's performance and singing herein was a total revelation to me.

Watching the emotionally intense black comedy, "Notes on a Scandal," you, too, may feel like its main character, Barbara, who reflects in one of her many voice-overs, "The opera has begun and I have a front-row seat." Directed by Richard Eyre ("Iris," "Stage Beauty" and the exceptional TV version of "Suddenly, Last Summer" with Maggie Smith and Natasha Richardson), "Notes" bravely wades into modern-day Grand Guignol as the tension between its two female stars heads inevitably toward a showdown.

Patrick ("Closer") Marber's melodramatic screenplay cleverly makes use of Barbara's voice-overs as she scribbles in her diary and makes jaded, bitter observations about the world around her. Abundant voice-overs usually point toward shortcomings in a drama, but here they provide irony and serve to enhance the dialog.

In her juiciest role since "Mrs Brown," Judi Dench brings an element of sympathy to Barbara, a closeted, self-loathing lesbian school teacher attracted to the new art teacher, Sheba, played by Cate Blanchett. Madly hoping to wrest the heterosexual Sheba from her husband and two children, one of whom has Down Syndrome, Barbara stumbles upon Sheba's sexual dalliance with a 15-year-old student. In a Machiavellian turn, Barbara hopes to manipulate Sheba by maintaining her secret . . . with strings attached. Need I add that all does not go well?

In fact, escalating histrionic fireworks ensue. Blanchett holds her own in this emotional and physical battle royal, capping her incredible year (2006) that also included outstanding performances in "Babel" and "The Good German." As Sheba's husband, Richard, Bill Nighy also comes through with a powerhouse performance. The moody score by Philip Glass is icing on the cake.

At a tidy 92 minutes, "Notes on a Scandal" is highly concentrated and vivid. The recently announced Golden Globe nominations include Dench, Blanchett and Marber, so we can expect Oscar nods as well.

One of my favorite Joan Crawford films, and one that got her an Oscar nomination. It's a suspenser that starts as a female-in-distress story but, as the female is Ms Crawford, it unsurprisingly turns into a rather deadly cat & mouse game.

Joan plays heiress/playwright Myra Hudson who falls in love with, and marries, a brash younger man (an impressive Jack Palance). Palance, it turns out, is plotting to kill Joan with the assistance of the delightfully minxish Gloria Grahame, who plays his lover. (The inference about their sadomasochistic relationship must have raised a knowing eyebrow or two in 1952.) With their murder plot accidentally recorded, Crawford is given the opportunity to put to use one of her greatest assets: her reactions. Schooled in the silent era, she gives a remarkable, prolonged, dialogue-less acting job with facial expressions that go from contentment to shock, horror, grief and, finally, revulsion as she hears the recorded setups and declarations of love. (Crawford has put this ability to good use throughout her career; a strong point in her portrayal of Blanche in "Baby Jane.") Joan -- not one to be a victim for long -- is shortly at work hatching a revenge plan. The suspense is turned up several notches as things develop not-quite-as-expected.

The film has a fantastic dream sequence and an effective fantasy one in which Joan foresees how her counter-plot will, ideally, play out. It is juxtaposed, later, with the reality of carrying things off and it's brilliant.

I consider David Miller to be, generally, a mediocre director. But herein, he is unusually cinematic. Contrast this with his later female-in-distress picture, "Midnight Lace" with Doris Day, for all its atmosphere, or his later film with Crawford, "The Story of Esther Costello," which seems leaden in comparison.

Well-scripted, directed and acted, "Sudden Fear" is a fun-filled thrill ride with much to savor along the way to its beautifully contrived climax.

p.s.-- Absolutely avoid the TV-movie remake with Stephanie Powers.

A horror film with a surprise denouement, "Hide and Seek" kept me on the edge of my seat even when nothing was really happening. I'd credit director John Polson for that, and for sustaining an unsettling, macabre mood from beginning to end. Robert De Niro's performance is mostly very nuanced and understated, and Dakota Fanning is appropriately disturbing as De Niro's daughter, joining the line of Creepy Kids currently fashionable in horror films like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Ring."

After the death of her mother, played briefly by Amy Irving (who seems to drain the life out of everything that she's in), Dakota is taken upstate New York by her psychiatrist-father, to live in a gloomy house that looks haunted and is conveniently off the beaten track. This seems like an odd place for a child to recuperate, to say the least, but then it is a horror film after all. The nearest neighbors are a couple of kooks and even the local cop comes off as vaguely skin-crawling. In this environment, li'l Dakota is visited by Charlie, her imaginary friend. Or is he imaginary after all? Charlie's anti-social behavior escalates as we wonder if he's a supernatural being, Dakota herself, or perhaps one of the crazy, white-trash upstaters. I was guessing until just before the denouement, with the red herrings leaping gleefully throughout.

Once the film lets us in on what's been really going on, late in its third act, it becomes less interesting and settles into your typical action-oriented climax. Famke Jannsen is a concerned friend and doctor, and Elizabeth Shue is a neighbor who runs brazenly about the chilly upstate landscapes in a variety of tight, plunging v-neck sweaters, full-bodied country girl that she is.

Once they got Jane Fonda signed onto this project, they should have had the script doctor called in. Ms Fonda's return to frothy comedy is an event, but the film is not, and it does not serve her well. Jennifer Lopez co-stars and, as you might imagine, she doesn't hold up her end. A soft-voiced, bushy-tailed ingénue (at least in this story), J-Lo ends up as Fonda's straight woman; someone funny and gutsy was needed. In the DVD-version extras, you will find that some of the best scenes were edited out or not used in the final cut. (The all-out cat-fight that got replaced with a little face-slapping sure would have brightened things up.) Wanda Sykes' big scene got cut, and her much-needed sass is too watered down in her remaining scenes. Stage legend Elaine Stitch is trotted out near the end, but her role would have been more effective if it were larger. The entire script, which should have served only as a blueprint, needed to be punched up and made funnier. Only Jane Fonda's deviously undermining title character makes an impression, hauling this dead-weight vehicle around.

This is an example of a cheesy, low-budget idea gone Big-Budget, High-Concept Hollywood. The sole screenplay to date by actor Clark Gregg is an uneasy mix of supernatural thriller, suspense film and psycho-killer-horror with a clumsy exposition. The secondary characters are throw-aways, as the story suffocatingly focuses on a professor and his wife. Harrison Ford plays his role with all the passion of a cigar-store Indian, while Michelle ("Don't hate me because I'm beautiful") Pfeiffer does her boilerplate pained-and-tormented turn, complete with pinched cheeks and crocodile tears. Robert Zemeckis' direction is banal at best. The over-the-top CGI work is largely superfluous and overblown, particularly during the climactic scenes. Some reviewers described this as "Hitchcock-like" but Hitchcock would never have touched such a sub-par script nor depended so heavily on f/x. In fact, "What Lies Beneath" is rather short on suspense. There are, admittedly, a couple of scares but, shamelessly over 2 hours long, this "thriller" is largely inflated and anemic, and more closely resembles bottom-of-the-barrel DePalma.

The only John Waters film to date set in what is virtually an alternate universe -- the town of Mortville, Maryland -- a disgusting shantytown that inexplicably is governed by its own fascist Empress (Edith Massey), who is both cruel and unusual, and who lives in a Disneyland-like castle. This film is hard-core, undistilled Waters, working in his Classic Period that includes "Pink Flamingos" (his breakthrough film) and "Female Trouble" (possibly his greatest work). Filming without his leading lady/leading man, Divine, "Desperate Living" emerges as more of an ensemble film featuring notorious Hollywood starlet Liz Renay, Waters regular Mink Stole, and Jean Hill, discovered and making a striking debut herein. "Desperate Living" is audacious and fevered and yet has a naive quality to it, typical of Waters' artistic charm. Filmed on a shoestring budget, the film benefits from creative and eye-filling sets by Vince Peranio and costumes by Van Smith. It is a fusion of the surreal, the self-consciously rude and outrageous, and an homage to bad movies past. Acted out in a raucous, strident fashion favored by the director that punches every word across with triple exclamation points, "Desperate Living" is the pinnacle of Waters' wild style. It was followed by a comparatively more demure "Polyester" with Divine returning to the starring role, toned down for wider audience appeal. Needless for me to add, this film isn't for everyone nor was it meant to be, as is obvious right from the opening credits.

Marguerite Duras said, "I approach cinema with the intention to murder it." "Le Camion" is irrefutable evidence of her criminal intent. John Waters called "Le Camion" an example of truly experimental cinema because it is the absolute antithesis of anything remotely commercial. Released the same year as "Saturday Night Fever," it would be a sign of insanity to consider pairing "Le Camion" with it on a double-bill. Duras' film consists of endless shots of a blue truck driving through industrial sectors of the French suburbs, edited with the jaded-looking, chain-smoking director commenting on a script (that is never actually shot) to actor Gerard Depardieu. There is plenty of time to contemplate Duras' bracelets, wristwatch and her home decor, as well as what you might do once you're finally let out of the theater. An interior shot of the truck's upholstered bucket seats actually stuns the audience as if it were a moment of high-intensity drama. Eighty minutes long, the film actually seems much longer; in fact, it seems to take days. Oddly, it held me in a trance-like state for its duration. For his part, Depardieu -- constantly upstaged by the passive-aggressive Ms Duras -- looks bemused and feeds his co-star a lot of questions, which she answers with dismissive grandiosity, all of which is aimless. She talks about the script -- a story of a male truck-driver and an older, female hitchhiker, and their conversations, which are political, humanitarian, philosophical and all complete twaddle -- as if she has all the time in the world, and so do you. There may be something existential intended or it may, as I suspect, all be drivel. In any event, there is no question MD succeeds in strangling the life out of the cinema -- very slowly. Not to be missed, and unlikely you will want to see it twice. As Waters pointed out, introducing the film at Alliance Francaise in New York in February 2006, this film was never released on VHS and is unlikely to show up anytime soon on DVD.

The Grand Guignol/Grande Dame sub-genre of suspense in its decadent phase (though that might sound redundant). Lacking the cinematic iconography of waning Hollywood movie queens like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis, Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon (and Mildred Dunnock, in a featured part) compensate for it with Method histrionics -- and a thrilling confrontation scene to boot -- rising above the stale directing and prosaic mise-en-scenes. Indeed, Page's manic looniness largely carries the contrived but entertaining script (based on "The Forbidden Garden" by Ursula Curtiss), nicely matched by the perpetually plucky Gordon, both wearing bad fright wigs. A respectable entry in the pantheon of menopausal malevolence and, certainly, the type of film they don't make any more. The movie pretty much just runs out of steam, however, unfortunately lacking a satisfactory end, its hair-raising climax coming too early. Gerald Fried's score is expressive and stirring, and certainly a plus.

Flaming camp that's also surprisingly, heartachingly romantic. Absolutely nothing about this film seems geared toward mass acceptance except for its MTV-like editing. Dazzling and surreal. The camera loves leads Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman (at her loveliest).

A sturdy and controlled melodrama that's really about repressed sexuality and Oedipal impulses. Swinton's performance is the matrix as it moves brilliantly from chilly reserve to warm involvement. Handsome color cinematography and well-paced direction.

Certainly not a plot-driven movie, just "run, run, run, monster, monster, monster!" but lots of chills and thrills in the great tradition of Saturday matinee "dinosaur island" flicks. And, face it, the dinos are very cool!

It was scary alright! I even jumped out of my seat once and I'm pretty jaded when it comes to horror films. And it managed it all without dependence on special effects or gore. But the climax was soooo derivative and contrived, it put a damper on all the good stuff that led up to it.

I thought the new re-creation of "Planet of the Apes" had a lusher visual style and a better script. Of course the new technology also made for upgraded f/x in a film heavily dependent on that end. The acting was commendable generally, but especially by Helena Bonham Carter & Tim Roth behind all that monkey make-up.