richard-mason

As one of those who saw the premiere of this film at the Sydney Film Festival, I can assure you if I was on the "edgerton" of my seat, it was in disbelief as implausibility piled upon implausibility until the film collapsed under their weight.

The film started well, and for a while I was happy to go along with the well-worn Noir formula of the small crime that goes wrong, and all attempts to cover it up only make things worse for the illicit lovers, and the crimes get bigger and bigger. But they also get stupider and stupider, until you just feel your intelligence is being insulted. If, as bilingizard seems to be suggesting, black humour of the order of the Coen Brothers was being attempted, then I suggest some wit (other than that involving the fate of the dogs) should have been attempted. Nor do I think David Roberts was an acceptable lead. The character was dour and unpleasant from the beginning (making it hard to care what happened to him and his paramour) and the performance added no light or shade or leavenings of humanity.

I agree it looks good, and the direction is stylish. But the plot is not just full of holes, but sinkholes that suddenly open up under the feet of the characters, and the audience.

I agree with the other posters. I directed the Australian premiere of this play back in 1983, and just LOVED it and all of Christopher Durang's works (I also directed 'Dentity Crisis). So when I saw that one of my favourite directors of all time, Robert Altman, was making the film version, AND it had people like Glenda Jackson, Julie Hagerty, Tom Conti etc in it, I was agog with anticipation. It was probably my biggest disappointment in the cinema.

What is it about Altman that he seems to make a real turkey about once or twice a decade, in between all the wonderful films he makes?

What I can't understand is how Christopher Durang allowed his name to be credited as screenplay writer, when it's a travesty of his play. Especially what was done to the two psychiatrist characters..

And why set such a New York story in Paris/

And why ... and why .... oh forget it.

Just caught this the other day, and somehow, had not been aware that Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese and Mel Blanc had tried to revive the theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoons in the sixties. While not nearly as good as the cat and mouse's Hanna-Barbara heyday of the 40s and 50s, judging by this cartoon, they certainly put some of the life back in the franchise.

And how do they do it? By applying the Tweety and Sylvester formula that worked so well while they were at Warner Bros. (although, admittedly, I don't think Jones had much to do with those cartoons, leaving them mainly to Friz Freleng.)

Anyway, an amusing enough short, and a great improvement on the ones that were produced between Hanna-Barabara's departure for television, and Chuck Jones' arrival. I give it a 6.

MODERATE SPOILERS Occasionally, you catch a silent film that makes you realise just what a marvellous art form they were, and just how different to talkies. This is one of them.

Early on, you might shudder at the tired old set-up -- basically decent man seduced away from Virtuous Wife by Femme Fatale --while still admiring the photography and art direction etc.

But once the husband and wife reach the city, and rediscover themselves, it becomes one of the most charming films you could ever see, talking, silent, colour, monochrome, whatever.

Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien make an ideal screen couple, and their adventures together in the town are so funny and touching and tender, you will so want them to work out their differences and stay together.

The last section of the film returns to the melodramatic -- almost bathetic tone -- that we tend to stigmatise silent films as wallowing in, but by this time, you identify so strongly with the characters, that you are completely caught up, and prepared to forgive the fact that dramatic tastes were different eighty years ago.

And the film looks like one of the most beautifully lit gems the cinema has ever seen from beginning to end.

Aaah, a film with wit, humanity, intelligence, characters to care about, philosophy, politics, social commentary and family dramas, all without a special effect in sight.

A film for adults. A film to make you think.

Wonderful script, gorgeous photography.

What's not to like?

Now I must seek out The Decline of the American Empire, which I always thought sounded too intellectual and pretentious for a pleb like me, but now I want to fill in all the back-story on the characters. (But I refuse to call it a "prequel")

This film would have to vie with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" as the most pretentious science fiction movie ever.

What is it about sf films that make them think that, no matter how puerile or obvious or mundane the "revelations" they make are, just because they're sf they're automatically "deep and meaningful"? But if the same truisms were put forward in any other genre, they'd be laughed off the screen.

Sure, it's technically impressive, and sure, Jodie Foster is (as always)good, but is Robert Zemeckis really the man to try to convince us we're seeing Deep Thoughts? I don't know how convincing Carl Sagan's book is, I suspect print would be a better medium for what he's saying, but the movie? Sorry, we've lost Contact.

One of the most repellent films I've ever seen, and a travesty of the original. I was a Brian de Palma fan up till this film, and to my way of thinking, he's never recovered from it.

It also marks a low point in Al Pacino's career, his most indulgent, excessive performance ever, but at least he bounced back. He not only makes Paul Muni look great in the original, he even makes George Raft look good.

The whole film looks like de Palma, Pacino, and everyone else involved in it, stuck too much of that white powder that figures so prominently up their noses. A metaphor for 80s indulgence.

The young Oliver and Richardson -- especially Richardson -- are obviously having a ball in this mix of spies, high adventure, and tongue in cheek comedy According to Michael Powell, the two stars tore up the script, and devised their own scenes, and the pleasure they have in sending up the material, and in each other's work, shines through. (In fact, once or twice, Oliver seems to be trying not to crack up at Richardson's antics.) Patrick Macnee says he based The Avengers' John Steed on Richardson's character in this film, and that, too, shows. Thrills, spills,secret rays, gags and eccentric British characters, and villains from a country suspiciously reminiscent of Germany, but not named in 1938.

Deary me, some people get upset when a film isn't what they want it to be, don't they? How dare the film be what the film-makers set out to make, instead of what someone's narrow expectations dictate it should b?

Fancy In the Cut being gritty, seamy, sexy and deeply disturbing ... just like all the publicity (and the rating) warned us it would be. What a shock. How did the people expecting another Piano, or Meg Ryan Finds True Love Yet Again ever find themselves in the cinema?

As for those who have said they have walked out completely unmoved ... either they must be aliens or robots, or are fooling themselves, not wanting to acknowledge the truth of what they've seen on the screen. Seldom have I seen a film that so truly examines the dark side of our sexual impulses. I walked out quite shattered, and wandered around in a daze for a while.

Meg Ryan completely miscast? Ridiculous and insulting. How dare you tell an actress she has to be Little Mary Sunshine for the rest of her life. And she pulls it off brilliantly. She and Mark Ruffalo give the most stunning lead performances for a long time. Why? Because they're playing real, multi-layered people. Not goody-goodies or baddy-baddies.

Didn't like any of the characters? Must have a very limited range of acquaintances, or alternatively, don't like the real people you do know.

Thriller plot not thrilling? Admittedly it's not the strongest point in the film, but it has all the required shocks and surprises (and, you'd think enough gore for the modern audience), and while the revelation of the murderer is not the biggest twist ending ever, the final shot takes your breath away.

And anyway, Campion, while handling the thriller genre competently, is using it as a means to explore sexuality. And attraction. And how much of love involves physicality, carnality, trust, the desire to dominate, the desire to be dominated, and above all, the attraction of the DANGEROUS. Yes, adult stuff, not often tackled in mainstream films.

I think it's her best film ever (possibly excepting Sweetie), and I give it 9 out of 10.

A second viewing of this after many years has confirmed it as truly one of the great comedies. I don't think Sturges was ever better (although I haven't seen all his films), and certainly he was never blessed with a better star pairing than Fonda and Stanwyck, plus his usual wonderful array of character comedians in the supporting roles. A double bill of Eve with "Hail the Conquering Hero" reveals that, while both still have their charms, Eve can still have a theatre rocking with laughter, while Hero leaves them a bit cold with its descent into Capra-cornish patriotism and mother love.

The Lady Eve has one of my favourite performances ever from Henry Fonda, showing that his grave sincerity could serve screwball comedy equally as well as Fordian moral uplift. He takes some of the funniest deadpan pratfalls this side of Buster Keaton.

And of course Stanwyck is a delight ... and Charles Coburn ... and Eugene Pallette ... and William Demarest ... and ... and ... ssshhh ... Eric Blore.

If you've never seen it, give yourself a treat

This film commits the cardinal sin of not knowing what it is, or what it's about, and consequently ending up being about nothing. Certainly nothing anyone cares about.

It certainly adds nothing to the infamous 1974 incident during Frank Sinatra's Sydney visit. It pretty well retells what happened then, while adding some not very interesting fictional characters, involved in a completely conventional and by-the-numbers "romantic comedy" plot.

Dennis Hopper, one of the most charismatic film actors alive, plays Frank Sinatra, one of the most charismatic singer/actors ever, and make both of them dull. There are a few sparks of fire, but his wooden impersonation of Sinatra singing is like watching a rather stiff marionette. One is left wondering why Hopper and Melanie Griffiths bothered. Are they that desperate for money? Or did they really, really, really want a free trip down under?

Joel Edgerton and Rose Byrne are their usual competent selves in the sub (or is it main?) plot, but it's SO conventional and predictable, one also wonders why they bothered.

As for David Field as Bob Hawke ... while it's certainly arguable that Hawke is/was a buffoon in many ways, he has never been the boorish clown depicted here.

The script is the villain. It's an idea --- and not a very strong one -- which has been developed into .... what? Certainly nothing Australian audiences want to see, as evidenced by the box office returns.

The only person to come out of this completely triumphantly is Tom Burlinson, who supplies the Sinatra vocals. If you didn't know it was him, you would swear you were listening to the Chairman of the Board himself, and on a day when he was in fine voice.

5 out of 10, and I think I'm being generous.

If all action movies were as much fun as this one, perhaps I wouldn't hate the genre so much.

I suppose it helps that I'm already familiar with the back story and characters, but I think more important are that it has just enough intelligence, and assumes that the viewer does too, plus plenty of humour and even wit.

Fears that the lack of the James Cameron panache would be a severe setback proved ill-founded. It's a great roller coaster ride, but perhaps just a shade less so than T2.

And here's something I thought I'd never be saying ... Arnie is so good. His deadpan delivery of some of his hilarious lines is just spot on, and he even makes you feel the confusion of the man-machine faced with moral dilemmas. In fact, in a role that is really just a high tech version of Frankenstein's monster, I'd say he even gives the great Boris Karloff a run for his money.

And the ending this time leaves us in absolutely no doubt that Arnie (and the others) will be back.

Unless he becomes Governor of California, of course.

Well, it had to happen. Ang Lee has finally made a bad film. The genius of The Wedding Banquet, Eat,Drink,Man,Woman and Crouching Tiger,Hidden Dragon has found a genre he just doesn't get.

I've never been a fan of the (Incredible) Hulk, but since Ang Lee directed the film, and Aussie boy making good Eric Bana was playing the lead (well, the part of the lead played by a human), I went along.

Oh, dear.

It started well. The credits sequence was quite dazzling in the way it conveyed so much information, in such a clever way, without a word of dialogue.

As the film proper got underway, I liked all the clever split-screen, comic book edits. Reminded me of those pop art films of the 60s.

But after a while, I realised why they were there. They were to disguise how BORING the film actually was. If it weren't for the flashy cuts, dissolves, split screens, there would be NOTHING to hold your attention.

The big mistake was to treat the Pulpy Hulk like he was Greek tragedy, rather than Marvel Comic. Such a silly super hero premise does not stand up to Serious Acting and Portentous Writing. Leave that for The Ice Storm. A comic book adaptation should be fun.

So we wait for about an hour before the Hulk finally appears, and then he's not too convincingly animated. More like a video game character than a big screen (anti) hero.

Eric Bana struggles in the role of Bruce Banner. Jennifer Connelly fares better as the heroine. Nick Nolte is .... well, more like a Marvel villain at least.

I don't know who the film is aimed at .... it's much too violent and scary for kids, too boring for teens and twenties, and too juvenile for older adults.

But I'll still look forward to Ang Lee's next film with anticipation.

Five out of ten.

Considering how late in their career this came, and how lame some of its predecessors were, this one is not too bad. And it's a joy to see some of the wordplay they were famous for make a welcome return amidst the routine slapstick. Sure, "Take your pick" "The shovel is my pick" is not on the same level as "Who's On First?", but it's still amusing enough, and it's fun to see them deal with one last Universal monster. 6/10

This film is even sillier than Plan 9 from Outer Space, with its ridiculous monster (a robot who looks like a gorilla with a fish tank on his head?), it's incomprehensible plot, and the ultimate in special effects, a bubble machine. All this, and Elmer Bernstein's first music credit. The man in the gorilla suit obviously has no shoes or any other protection on his feet .... notice the way he tippy-toes across the rugged terrain. You can almost hear him saying "ouch" with every step. It's too deliriously silly not to love, and too badly conceived and made not to hate. So if you're given the chance to see it, you'll be faced with the same moral dilemma as the Monster: "I cannot. And yet I must. And yet I cannot. And yet............."

SLIGHT GAG SPOILER

I love this film ... not because it's their bes (aaah Monkey Business, aah Duck Soup, aaah Horse Feathers) but because, after the steady decline of their MGM films, sinking to the nadir of The Big Store, they were able to bounce back to something like a REAL Marx Bros film.

Sure it looks a bit shoddy, and some of the gags are weak, but Harpo has some great sight gags, Groucho has some one-liners worthy of him, and even Chico is back to being the shifty, untrustworthy conman he was in the early films ("Hey boss, you gotta woman in there?") instead of Harpo's milksop nursemaid that MGM tried to turn him into.

There are too priceless exchanges involving Groucho ("I'm Beatrice Reiner, I stop at the hotel." "I'm Ronald Kornblow, I stop at nothing" and his humiliation of the pompous Mr Smythe, plus Harpo's equally hilarious demolition of Beatrice, make this well worth watching. AND IT'S OUT ON DVD.

I've given this a one, because there is no doubt it is truly awful in every department, and yet, and yet .... it's so damn enjoyable. I first saw it on a double bill with Robot Monster back in the 80s, as the two worst films ever made (This was before Blair Witch Project), and they were just so hilarious. It feels mean to deride the well meaning efforts of the Ed Wood and co, just for turning out crap. The definition of a guilty pleasure.

Someone has to put a counterview, and I'm happy to do it. The film starts promisingly, with the fish head narrator, but descends so quickly into arty pretentiousness that any goodwill is quickly squandered. I found it so unbearably up itself that I walked out, something I rarely do. It was probably the worst film I saw at the 2001 Sydney Film Festival.

After years of hearing that this was one of, if not THE worst Hitchcock picture, finally seeing it was a pleasant surprise.

Sure, it's an unfamiliar genre for him (Under Capricorn would have to be the closest, and it really IS one of his worst), but it is a rollicking, exciting adventure romp, if you stop expecting it to be a Hitchcock masterpiece.

In the famous interview with Truffaut, Hitchcock dismisses the film very quickly, blaming its failure on Charles Laughton, who was co- producer and star, and brought in J B Priestley to build up his part. But it is SUCH an enjoyable performance --- over the top yes, this is Laughton we're talking about --but absolutely relishing his role as the hypocrotical magistrate who is secretly head of the smuggling gang. (Not really a SPOILER, it's revealed early in the picture .... too early for Hitchcock's liking.) And the delight he takes in tying up his female prisoner must surely be equally a reflection of Hitch's obsessions, as much as the character's.

Maureen O'Hara, making her debut, looks ravishing, but is far too healthy and robust and ACTIVE (and brunette) to be considered your typical Hitchcock heroine.

But you only have to watch the cutting in the opening scene of the first shipwreck to know that this is certainly the same man who gave us the shower scene in Psycho.

What a deceptively simple, and wonderfully revealing and enjoyable documentary this is.

It's a character study of the staff and regular patrons of the Bellaria Cinema in Vienna, which shows exclusively the German films of the 30s, mostly musicals and Ruritanian romances.

The patrons, all of "a certain age", remember the films from their first release, and most go everyday to relive the glory days of their youths.

The glimpses of the films are fascinating, but the character sketches of the staff and patrons even more so, especially the ancient projectionist, who has a unique view of sex, and the twin sister groupies (stalkers?), who spend their whole lives tracking down the famous (or formerly famous) and having their pictures taken with them.

But while the film stands on its feet purely on the strength of these character portraits, it gradually reveals something much darker. The world that all these people miss so badly, and are trying to recapture through the films, is, of course, the world of the Third Reich. Not a single one of them makes a pro- Nazi, or anti- Semitic remark, they are all perfectly ordinary, likeable, if eccentric people, but you can tell they are yearning for what they call a "simpler" or "more gracious" age.

The scary message of the film, if you care to see it, is the answer to the question: What kind of people allow a totalitarian regime take over their country? Ordinary, likeable if eccentric, people, just like you and me.

It's far from the first documentary about Dietrich, but as far as I know, this is the first to tell her story from a specifically German point of view. It's how she viewed her homeland, especially during the long years abroad, that is the prism this film uses to look at the familiar material.

However, not all of the material is familiar -- there are a lot of home movies not seen before (the advantage of having your grandson as the film maker), and Dietrich's daughter (mother of the film maker) is by far the most revealing Talking Head.

Dietrich's anti- Nazi efforts during the Second World War, fuelled by her passion for French Freedom Fighter Jean Gabin as much as patriotism, form a central part of the narrative, along with her conflicting emotions over helping the Allied war effort while her mother was still in Berlin.

A new take on a well-known story, and well worth a visit

Caught up with this one on TV last night. Beats me why anyone would want to be the new Jerry Lewis, but My Lord, Jim Carrey surely does seem to want to be here. (Or perhaps he'd rather be a cartoon? He certainly seemed ideal for The Mask and The Riddler.)

He mugs, he pratfalls, he does funny (?) voices, he even literally beats himself up, in pursuit of a laugh. But it's an awful lot of effort for a fairly poor return.

The plot is basically the same as Bob Hope's Nothing But the Truth, with the addition of a mystical element (and does it strike you as strange how many adults are willing to believe that a child's birthday wish has come true, after about two seconds of convincing?) I bailed out before the no holds barred, all stops out sentimental redeeming climax, which was being telegraphed so heavily, I was suffering sugar overload ten minutes before it arrived.

Reasonably entertaining. 7 out of 10 because I'm feeling generous.

What a peculiar film. Based on a popular BBC Radio Variety show of the 40s, but apparently bearing very little resemblance to it, except for the title and the stars.

Surely one of the only British films ever largely set in the US (it does finally get to England for the last third), and to feature many English actors affecting American accents (admittedly much better than most American actors who try British accents). At least it comes naturally to Daniels and Lyon.

One has to wonder if the Brits, knowing nothing but the government monopoly of the BBC, could really appreciate a plot that's based around the rivalry between two American commercial networks.

It does have some funny spots, and some reasonably bright musical numbers, but the characters are extremely unpleasant for a morale boosting wartime comedy. Lyon and Daniels are absolutely ruthless in their efforts to top each other on behalf of their networks, and both are quite brutal towards Oliver, cast as a perpetual troublemaker. In the final scene, as the trio are flying back to America, Lyon and Daniels trick Oliver into stepping out of the plane. "But I haven't got a parachute" he shouts to them as he plummets to earth. "We know", they say cheerfully from the open plane door. We do see him then land in the water, so we know he isn't killed, but given that Oliver was married to the Prime Minister's daughter at the time, it does seem a bit unpatriotic.

A moderately enjoyable curiosity.

What a wonderful film about making (or not making) a film. The story of Don Quixote would seem absolutely perfect for Terry Gilliam, and Jean Rochefort would seem the ideal Don. But it was not to be.

The small bits of film captured look wonderful, the amount of detail that goes into the preparation and shooting is eye-opening, the fragility of the whole enterprise to the weather, the fates, and the backers, is sobering.

Gilliam comes across as a benign genius, only losing his temper towards the end of the film when the whole enterprise is completely falling apart.

I saw this film at the Sydney Film Festival this year, which also screen Making Venus, another film apart a failed project. Making Venus was much more intimate, funny, and doomed, compared to the broad canvas of Lost in La Mancha. Together they made an interesting, and illuminating contrast. Making Venus was easily my favourite local documentary at the festival, Lost in La Mancha one of the best from overseas.

I know de Oliveira is one of the Old Masters, and I know being an artist at the end of your creative life is the whole point of the picture, but really, it tries the patience.

Individual scenes work well, and the little touches of humour are as welcome as spots of rain in a drought, but those interminably held shots, in those interminable scenes, were just too much.

I wanted to like it. I really did. And at times, I did. Michel Piccoli was superb as the film-maker's alter ego. But, maybe, just maybe, someone should have said to Manuel: "You're in your nineties, you've got nothing left to prove. Just go home and have a rest."