nick suess Reviews

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

A fantasy roller-coaster ride that left me breathless

[10/10 · 18 April 2014]

Movie making at its absolute brilliant best, using all the elements that were central to the art in the period in which it is predominantly set, the early 30s. This was only 5 years into the era of the 'talkies' and the acting was emphatic, the dialogue crisp. No special effects, but cute little models depicting the scene, even the gorgeous wedding-cake facade of the hotel itself. And it was eastern Europe epitomised to perfection. My ancestral roots are in that region, and I saw so many of the quirky mannerisms that populated my distant childhood, those of relatives now long gone who were young adults there in the 30s. I loved Mendl's - pure Viennese Konditorei, with their little pink boxes that so much 'belonged' that I could taste the chocolate, cream and marzipan.

The plot screamed "suspend disbelief", and it's sad that the 'hated it' brigade on here couldn't figure this - obviously they find 'Avatar' more realistic! The acting - well Ralph Fiennes overwhelmingly carried the scene, and if he (and also the movie and director) don't walk off with little statuettes there's something very wrong with the system. But Zero both young and old were terrific, and I see a 'best supporting' for the boy with the pencil-thin moustache.

Some movies, despite their brilliance, are ones you see just a single time. This one I could watch over and over, and I am sure each time I would spot delightful little things I missed before. It is such an exquisite confection - a Mendl's pastry wrapped up in a cubic pink box and tied with a bright blue ribbon. Yum-yum!!!!

Argo (2012)

The art of movie-making is not lost

[10/10 · 25 July 2013]

I travelled in Iran during the era of the Shah. I knew his was a puppet regime set up by the UK and USA to protect their access to Iranian oil. I knew that he was horrifically repressive and his secret police (SAVAK) were brutal beyond belief. The movie states all of this quite unequivocally at the start.

I also know that what followed him was every bit as oppressive and brutal, and the movie depicts the reality of this. It is not anti-Islamic to show the truth, the summary executions, gun-happy revolutionary guards and many people strung up in the street from mobile cranes, a barbaric practice that continues to this day.

I remember when the Ayatollah flew back in from France, and I really do remember the high hopes all around the world that a new dawn of freedom had arrived for Iran, but unfortunately it never happened. The movie is not inaccurate in its portrayal of those troubled times. The streets were indeed full of angry mobs day after day, usually chanting slogans demanding death to all Americans.

But this is a movie review, not a political analysis, nor a fine examination of the factual details. Ben Affleck has taken the bare bones of a true story and used artistic licence to direct a brilliant thriller, absolutely gripping.

It's top movie-making, and for that I award 10 marks.

Those mean spirits who dispute this - Ar, Go f-ck yerself!

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Thankfully, I didn't pay to see it.

[1/10 · 25 July 2013]

I saw this piece of extended trash on an aeroplane. Its most exciting moment was when the hostie came with my meal, and the second most exciting was when she came to take away my tray. In between, I endured three hours of dross. My wife quit after one hour but I foolishly stuck with it in the vain hope that something meaningful might eventually be revealed. The most meaningful revelation was in the closing titles, when I realised I had failed to spot that Nurse Noakes was Hugo W. OK, it was late at night.

Anyone making oxymoronic use of the word 'masterpiece' in relation to this pretentious piece of self indulgence must have been living under a damp rock. World cinema is full of truly great movies, and I was lucky enough to watch two of them on the long trip from London to Australia. Unfortunately this stood out as the exception.

The use of interlocking themes is not new, and there are numerous excellent examples, but in these the links make sense, and go beyond recycling a set of big name actors with elaborate make-up and prosthetics, or speaking silly invented languages. Such movies need to be tight, engaging, compelling, and not a weary yawnfest.

Ultimately, making this rambling assembly of disjointed half-baked ideas at this huge length was a total indulgence by its directors. Why did it receive zero Oscar nominations? Because the Academy is not composed of complete idiots, that's why, OK?

True Blue (1996)

I prefer a happy ending

[3 February 2012]

I had read the book many years ago, and saw the movie for the first time last night. This is the story of the 1987 Boat Race (NOT 1986), and many who were close to those events have claimed the book inhabits something of a world of fiction. Regardless of whether or not that is true, the movie most certainly does, suffering acutely from two problems. The first is trying to dramatise a real-life story but not be sued out of existence by those portrayed as less than perfect in character, especially if they are Americans, and the second is needing actors to acquire specialist skills in a very short space of time. So the rowing scenes looked pretty awful, except for the long-range shots with real rowers, and they didn't even attempt to make sure they sourced equipment of the correct era. But to the non-rower, apart from Topolski and McDonald, everyone else seemed to be a cardboard cut-out of someone else. And then there were the accents. I have never met McDonald, but thought he was a Scot, not an upper-class Englishman. I have met Topolski, whose famous artist father Feliks was Polish, but left there ten years before Dan's birth. I think Dan was born in Britain, and certainly sounds as British as can be, so why cast a Belgian to play him with a Polish accent? I am a rower, and also a Cambridge man. Ultimately, since they were going to play so extremely fast and loose with the events of 1987, why couldn't they also depict a happy ending, with Oxford as gallant losers, but Cambridge well out in front????

We Have a Pope (2011)

Suitability to lead

[8/10 · 20 December 2011]

The one glaring plot hole in this charming movie is that in order to have arisen to the rank of cardinal, the pope-elect must surely have first displayed more than his fair share of the characteristics of ambition and the desire to climb the slippery pole (no, no matter how appropriate it may seem, this is not a reference to the previous ground-kissing guy in the job) to the top. But then it could be that right there, three or four metres short of stepping onto the balcony to be acclaimed by the faithful, he experienced his own personal 'Road to Damascus' moment, with the realisation that he was simply not up to the awesome task of leading such a vast global flock. However, if the subtitles correctly translated his speech at he end, what he said then was that the entire pack of cardinals behind him was not up to the task either. To me that was a very pointed comment to sum up all we had seen in the preceding 90 minutes or so.

That the college of cardinals was portrayed as a sort of boys' club was a clever dramatic trick. Commenters here have asked why they weren't acting out the roles of Machiavellian plotters, and I feel that Moretti chose this depiction in order not to draw the viewer away from the main plot of the pope's personal dilemma. There can be no doubt that during the election the two or three front runners displayed their desire to wear the white skull cap, and disappointment when they felt it was slipping away from them to a rank outsider, but Moretti left the power-hungry story there.

And so with what ultimately became a surreal display of old men in skirts playing volleyball, Moretti lampooned the Vatican and stated his very clear question - are these very strange elderly men even remotely suitable to lead the hundreds of millions who still ascribe to their badly tarnished faith despite its amply demonstrated incapacity to embrace anything that has happened over the last five centuries, from Galileo to gay rights?

A House with a View of the Sea (2001)

The hills are alive... or maybe not!

[8/10 · 23 July 2010]

A bleak portrayal of feudalism still very much alive in the Andean foothills in the mid 20th century. The story is set in 1948, by chance the year of my birth, but the world there in the Venezuelan mountains could be another planet from the sophisticated urban society into which I made my arrival. Life is tough. It's cold, wet, and windy (and that's when it isn't deep in snow), and the story opens with the peasant Tomás burying his young wife Maria, watched only by son Santiago. There's little ceremony, just a brief silent prayer and a rough wooden cross planted on the grave. We already feel that death is a familiar neighbour.

It soon becomes clear that Tomás is exploited with atrocious shabbiness by feudal landlord Don Homero, who actively encourages his sons in their brutal bullying of Santiago, and we know we are watching the recipe for a disaster about to unfold. Nevertheless we have a charming portrayal of Santiago surprised by all the emotions of the arrival of puberty, and also father and son, whose only known environment is the mountains, confronted by trying to comprehend something as totally alien to them as the sea. "Are there trees in the sea?" Santiago asks. "Yes, of course there are, but they are much smaller than the ones we have here" replies his Dad.

Into this world chances the photographer, an alien figure himself, a gringo, the one person who does not live off the land, and amidst this peasant life he is an utterly surreal character. To the locals he weaves his own brand of magic as he takes his photos of groups of them stiffly posed against his painted canvas backdrops, one of these being the raging sea. I found his entire presence to be an ambiguity, as I also found the ending. Perhaps he simply represented the outside world eventually arriving there. Or maybe it never has, and this is what the moviemaker is telling us. I don't know.

The initial still shot, prior to cutting to the earth being shovelled onto Maria's coffin, is of a fence, and to me it symbolises how Tomás and Santiago are shut away from the world outside. I'd love to see a few more reviews! Certainly very far from feelgood cinema, but very well acted by the principals, directed with sensitivity, and a worthwhile evening's movie watching. 8/10

Mamma Mia! (2008)

I'm so happy.....

[1/10 · 10 July 2010]

.....that my wife just borrowed the DVD from a neighbour for us to watch on a very wet winter evening, so we didn't spend a single cent on this utterly mind-numbing drivel. But for the fact that we had checked the running time in advance and seen that it was only about 100 minutes, I'd have totally lost the will to live, but I knew there would eventually be light at the end of the darkest of tunnels.

Like a lot of contributors here I love musicals, both on stage and screen. We sing in a choir and most of our really good numbers come from the musicals. I have also always liked ABBA music, I love the Greek Islands, and I saw the stage version 4 or 5 years back and greatly enjoyed it. D'ya get the picture? What I am saying here is that every single ingredient was there for me to have thoroughly enjoyed this, and I settled down on the sofa with my wife to watch it in eager anticipation of a real treat. Instead I got a real enema.

How could they have come up with such an absolute mess? Everything is wrong. Direction, screenplay, cinematography, casting, singing (could you call it that? Most of the neighbourhood cats started yowling in protest!), choreography, and the final insult - continuity, which was totally lacking with dozens of screaming goofs.

I ought to get off to bed, but I'm scared I will have nightmares that I am being hideously tortured by being tightly strapped to a huge heavy chair with my eyelids stitched open and forced to watch it right through over again. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH!

La estrategia del caracol (1993)

Here's your painted house!

[10/10 · 9 July 2010]

During our winter season, the Perth Tango Club shows a South American movie every Friday before the regular dance session, and we have seen some excellent cinema this year, but this delightful film has been the highlight so far. Like one contributor here I found myself thinking of it as a Gabriel Garcia Marquez fable as I watched the plot steadily unwind, and like another I thought of the "subversive interruption of the abstracting powers of speculative capital", and "the socially disjunctive effects of capitalism" (I quote from that review). Indeed it had me wondering why we as human society continue to allow the anti-social rich to mess with our lives so much. But that's politics, and the movie was far more about the power of the human spirit than it was about making a political statement, and the young left-wing politico in the group got very firmly told to just stop the slogan-bashing and get on with the vital work at hand. The emptiness of the rich man's painted house was the final message of this lovely fable. Beautifully shot, with no special effects to distract from the power of the acting. I couldn't fault it. 10/10

2 Filhos de Francisco: A História de Zezé di Camargo & Luciano (2005)

Walk the Brazilian Line

[6/10 · 13 June 2010]

Curious that this was released in the same year as 'Walk The Line', because I saw a lot of parallels. Dirt poor boy from the backwoods becomes country music star. Also having a brother who dies horribly. I loved the performances by the parents and the child actors in close up focus but didn't feel emotionally overwhelmed by the big picture of their story. I think you would need to be Brazilian and a fan of ZC&L to feel that. There was a kind of presumption in the way it suddenly moved to its conclusion that we all knew the story from there on in - ZC&L become big stars. For those of us who had never heard of them before, we suddenly realise it's a fan-pic, and this comes as quite a surprise. I was a big fan of 'The Man in Black', who was obviously famous through the English speaking world, so I loved 'Walk the Line', but also felt it had more universal appeal in its message. This movie was preaching to the converted. 6/10

Amelia (2009)

Ground Loop

[4/10 · 17 January 2010]

Bit of pilot talk here. What happened when she crashed attempting to take off from Hawaii is called a "ground loop" - it is on record that this was the nature of the crash. Tail wheel aircraft (the old style of the 3rd wheel being under the tail, not the nose) have always been prone to this, and what happens is that they can suddenly flip round so they are travelling tail first.

I can't help feeling that this is what happened with this film, even getting started that way with the annoyance of her departure on the fateful flight before going backwards in time, and THEN actually showing that same sequence of her departure over again just at the end, almost like they had run out of material. The director attempted take off and ground looped.

Quite honestly, it was a directorial disaster. I enjoyed her "Monsoon Wedding", which is the only other piece of her work that I've seen, but she completely failed to get to grip with this material, and the result was a rambling yawn.

Yes, as a pilot I enjoyed all the old aircraft, especially the beautiful Lockheed Electra, and I found Hilary Swank's portrayal excellent, her physical likeness to Amelia remarkable (apart from the teeth) and foresee a possible third Oscar coming from it. But the director failed to remind Richard Gere that he wasn't playing Billy Flynn in "Chicago", coming across as a shallow opportunist whose emotion for Amelia seemed forced, as he was only in love with money. Ewen McGregor was no less wooden, appearing as just another rich sleazebag in search of a shag. Add in a faint hint of lesbianism, dropped completely no sooner than it was picked up, so why bother? Add in an excessive amount of focus on Gore Vidal, maybe to try and portray Amelia's suppressed maternal instincts, but again, merely toyed with in the bedroom scene, in which I genuinely thought she was about to break into "whistle a happy tune"! Was GV promised this much entirely irrelevant exposure in return for recounting his childhood memories of AE? And yet a perfect opportunity for character development was totally missed. Amelia did indeed finish third in the Women's Air Derby, but only due to losing time to help rescue her friend Ruth Nichols, who had crashed on take-off. All we saw was her shrugging off third place and Putnam looking moderately angered over this.

I could go on. A lot of carelessly stupid stuff, such as labelling Karachi as in Pakistan, which did not exist at the time, and as an Indian Nair must have known this. Nor did Papua New Guinea exist, and it was referred to as such in the dialogue as well as the location label. Did they do any research at all???

But the final shocker was how it branded Fred Noonan as a lecherous drunk, with clear implications that he might have been responsible for the loss of their flight. I do not believe there is any evidence he ever made a pass at her (and he was very recently married), nor that he was drinking heavily on the eve of the flight. Indeed he did his job to perfection, and got her within radio range of Howland Island. Noonan was on record as considering there to be problems with the accuracy of radio direction finding, and against that background there is ample evidence of an abysmal lack of prior planning and co-ordination between herself and the US Navy, specifically described by researchers as "poor planning, worse execution". So it's disgraceful that the name of someone who cannot refute the charge has thus been besmirched.

4/10 for this ground loop of a movie, and only because I enjoyed the aeroplanes.

Flightplan (2005)

Rubbish

[1/10 · 9 January 2010]

Seldom does a movie actually make me feel really angry and insulted by the movie makers, but ShytePan did just that. What were two genuinely fine actors such as Jodie Foster and Sean Bean doing in this piece of unmitigated garbage?

The plot was as thin as paper, full of ludicrous improbability, and all that was left was for Jodie to spend most of the time running around that vast fantasy aeroplane (and as a pilot I can assure readers that no aeroplane would ever be built so full of cavernous empty space) with an agonised look on her face that was so forced and desperate that I suspect she must have been running out of patience with both the director and with her agents for getting her into such a mess. Sean Bean was probably wishing he was back among the hobbits.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Holmes and Watson join Voldemort, Sauron and the da Vinci mob for a rollicking romp across Victorian London

[7/10 · 30 December 2009]

Much as I appreciated that this Holmes explored more of the darker sides of Conan Doyle's character than many past dramatisations have, it was a serious distraction to find him embroiled with characters and settings drawn without apology straight from Potter, Tolkien and Dan Brown. I mean, look at this plot! It centres around the return from the dead of the Dark Lord, who then murders his own father and steals his magical ring. He is the leader of a brotherhood of satanists who meet (for their virgin sacrifices etc etc) in secret chapels decorated with pentacle symbols.

Nevertheless, Ritchie succeeded in recreating the black humour of Lock-Stock to take us on a romp across a geographically distorted Victorian London which was enjoyable almost for its improbability. I hope that when Holmes locks horns with Moriarty in however many sequels are to follow we get something just a tad more cerebral in plot development, with more focus on the 'clues' to tease our minds as we progress through the story.

Neither a masterpiece nor a landmark redefinition of the Holmes story, in fact very far from being either, but for two hours of light entertainment I'll be generous and give it 7/10.

Albert's Memorial (2009 TV Movie)

Only Obeying Last Orders

[13 December 2009]

Very clearly modelled on 'Last Orders', it embodies the same formula of old men carrying out the deathbed wishes of a wartime comrade, who entrusts them to dispose of his mortal remains according to his particular direction. This sends them on a "heroes' journey" during which long held suspicions and antagonisms get ultimately laid to rest, enabling them to emerge more healthy in mind. It similarly casts some of the finest British actors of their generation, substituting Davids Jason and Warner for Bob Hoskins, Tom Courtenay and David Hemmings as the 'undertakers' of the mission, and Michael Jayston for Michael Caine as the deceased party. It even makes an oblique reference to Margate in clear homage to 'Last Orders'.

However, it delves even deeper into the human psyche with an even blacker memory that they have all been suppressing for 55 years, all about just trying to do their jobs as soldiers at a time when death was all around, and innocent non-combatants were far from exempt. The story deliberately follows a path of increasing improbability as it develops an ever more pointed trail of clues about their mystery hitchhiker, who becomes so crucial to them completing their mission.

'Last of the Summer Wine' set the stage for what is hopefully now a succession of comedic drama productions, such as 'Last Orders' and 'Albert's Memorial', in which old men find that their age suddenly allows them to open up and discard their inhibitions about feelings which their upbringing in a distant era had told them a man should never reveal. As a man in my 60s I view this as a strong parallel to all the messages we are getting these days about "men's health", as our mental health is of equal importance. In the modern buzzword, it's "empowering" to receive a message that things which need to be talked about should no longer be suppressed.

Like the other contributors here, I saw it on Australian ABC TV last night, and I'm still thinking about it. Thoroughly recommended, and fuller details (including the casting of Michael Jayston) would be welcome on IMDb.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

The parable of backwards time and a backwards dancer

[3/10 · 3 February 2009]

What an indulgent ramble!

This was a loose string of vignettes gathered together around the fantasy of one individual for whom time runs backwards, a child born old and growing younger. Put together over this huge length of time it was supposed to somehow give us enlightenment and a bit of universal truth about the the nature of life, the universe and everything. That is the function of a parable, and it seems that Fincher set out to make one, but forgot that parables are usually pithy and to the point. I haven't read the F Scott Fitzgerald short story, but maybe at 20 pages (according to some contributors here) that's just what it is.

Let's look at a couple of these vignettes. Firstly the Monsieur Gateau story, which was totally apt and to the point, the magnificent clock he made to run backwards in the hope that it would wind back time and undo the carnage of WW1, returning his only son from his grave in a Flanders field. That was very moving, especially the run-backwards shots of the fallen soldiers rising up out of the mud and gore, and made me hope for good things.

Amidst Daisy's death bed mumbles I never quite caught a link between the backwards clock and Benjamin's life running in that direction, and maybe none was made. Perhaps it was just a "what if?" statement as a foreword to the main story. But then that main 'story' simply got lost, hopelessly so.

Take the vignette about the sequence of chance events that led to Daisy being struck by a Parisian taxi. Utter irrelevance, adding I don't know how many minutes to an already overlong movie. Every road accident has 101 elements of pure chance, and hers was no different, and let's face it, if you are going to dance backwards into a Paris street from behind a parked truck, you have a damn good chance of getting run over, and if you don't, you are left with a 100% certainty of stepping in a dog turd when you reach the opposite pavement.

I stepped in an hugely overlong dog turd called 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'.

I'll give it 3 for a few good moments, especially M. Gateau, but I think I'm being generous.

Revolutionary Road (2008)

Travel from South Pacific to the Cuckoo's Nest aboard the Ballad of Lucy Jordan

[7/10 · 20 January 2009]

Well, to be taken on such a journey really must have something for everyone, but along the way, we don't find out very much about these characters. What exactly was it on some enchanted evening that caused these two to spot one another as strangers across a crowded room? It seemed to be an artistic party, and must have been, as there was even a token black man there, something which would have been socially very unusual in the late 40s, even in NYC. So what was Frank, who claimed to be a longshoreman, doing there? Clearly April had some measure of artistic pretensions, and we flash forward and there she is 'starring' in the local small town am-dram production. Pity it's a flop, but she is already sufficiently off her trolley to take this as a sign that her entire life is useless. And we do get the impression that she is already in the habit of turning her marital favours on and off like a tap. So Frank has had enough, and pretty soon it's wombat time for him.

We ask ourselves where can they go from here? To our great surprise, it is the inspiration of a pic of Frank as a young GI at the liberation of Paris that leads April to instantly decide the cure for their increasingly troubled marriage is to pack up everything and move to that romantic city she has never visited.

And so the fantasy drags on. To try and get the boss off his back, Frank spouts some piece of impromptu bullshit, and is instantly proclaimed a genius and offered promotion beyond his wildest dreams. That's conflict point 1 with the Paris plan, and simultaneous conflict point 2 is that April gets up the duff. I think this was about the conflict point at which I began to realise I was hungry, and wondered how much longer this would all go on.

But then it got better. Introduce the local loony to upstage the lot of them, and hey, we even had a bit of 'Beautiful Mind' in there, as he had a PhD in maths! His brain had been fried by electric shocks, which had destroyed the maths, but led him to have an uncanny perception about those around him. He, as the 'fool on the hill' saw through the entire thing, and nobody liked that.

Now, Lucy Jordan, the woman who "realised she'd never drive through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair" lived then and continues to live in so many of us who eke out our dull suburban lives, raising our children, and growing old. Lucy Jordan is not new. Telling her story over is valid for us to watch and learn, and for going into that zone, and asking those difficult questions, I am prepared to raise my vote to 7/10. But where was the attempt to answer the questions?

In many ways I found myself admiring April at that point, as despite her fairly unsympathetic character she did dare to dream. I can remember the 50s, and the stifling pressures of that era to conform, these being laid down by an older generation simply grateful to be alive and free after the horror of two global conflicts. I was strongly reminded of a wonderful aunt who likewise defied that society by undertaking Bohemian travel all over Europe. Single and childless, and based in London, she had far fewer issues than April to confront, but I still think she made her important decisions upon the basis of more than just an old snapshot of the Eiffel tower, which was all that seemed to get April started. Was that how her decision was made? I did sympathise more with Frank, the brief shot of him as one of the swarm of trilby hats emerging from Grand Central was very powerful, evocative of 'Koyaanisqatsi'. Despite the numbing boredom of his job, he was knuckling down and getting on with raising his kids. And here suddenly was this notion, a brief fleeting glimpse of a seductively different life. But how was his decision made? Why did he suddenly flip from 'no' to 'yes', especially with the already growing realisation that he was married to a fruit cake? You see, in a story such as this, I expect the movie maker to really take us into some depth on the genuine conflict we face when being confronted by difficult decisions. Maybe the book explored this, but I haven't read it. Mendes cops out of it completely. So we are left with just the loony to tell us the truth.

Maybe we should listen more carefully to lunatics!

A Legacy (1975– )

Fish should be whole and seen

[10/10 · 21 July 2008]

I agree with the previous reviewer that it was excellent, but would like to point out that neither family was Bavarian. The old aristocratic von Felden family lived in Baden in south Germany, and the Jewish Merz family were in Berlin.

More than 30 years after watching it on TV, the characters and many lines from it remain vivid in my memory (these include my title, the fact that I still call meatballs 'klops', and very occasionally like to indulge in 'second breakfast') and that's a test of quality. At long last I am reading the book. A word of caution there - snippets of dialogue and transcripts of documents occasionally appear in French or German without translation. Lucky for me I can read both, but difficult if you can't. I have a feeling that the TV series did the same, eg 'Jules a sa maîtresse près de Namur'.

Irene Handl was certainly magnificent in her role as 'Frau Geheimrat' but all the cast were terrific. A wonderful piece of TV well worth reviving.

Odette Toulemonde (2006)

Delightful feelgood escapism

[10/10 · 4 April 2008]

In some ways a remake of Amelie, in others very different indeed, with a layer of fantasy added to the surrealism of the earlier movie, and a Dennis Potter tendency to break into song at the drop of a hat, or even a feather. In Odette's case it is the songs of Josephine Baker which inspire her. Unlike Amelie, Odette is no longer young, but a widowed middle aged mother of two late teens, who struggles to keep her head above water. She is in no way chic, in fact quite the reverse, with a serious taste for all things kitsch. She is not from Montmartre, not even Parisienne, but a resident of Charleroi, a Belgian city south of Brussels famous only for its heavy industries of coal and steel. Style points seriously lacking in her life, and escapism into trashy fiction is what keeps her going.

Then when she least expects it, her life changes, and to tell any more would be a spoiler. Cynics amongst us may hate it, but the journey she travels as a result is reaffirming of optimism in life, and tells a story that wealth and fame are illusory bubbles, and that those who chase them are in for a surprise when they burst.

Watching it I was reminded of Adrian Henri's beautiful little poem, with the line "Love is a fan club with only two fans". Watch it.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

Do Panic!

[3/10 · 23 March 2008]

If you are going to do a remake of a genuine classic, you need to have a bit more to offer than just special effects. It originated as a radio series, and was a huge hit in that format, so it had quite enough humour to stand without any visuals whatever. But in this case it appears to have been "let's chuck out all the witty dialogue and cleverly linked plot themes, and substitute lots of big spaceships containing armies of huge rubbery Vogons".

Only improvement - Bill Nighy was born for the role of Slartibartfast.

I expect the dolphins left well before the end.

I give it 3 only because of 1. Homage to Douglas Adams 2. Bill Nighy 3. Zooey in the shower

Miss Potter (2006)

Simply beautiful - proving the Oscars are rubbish

[10/10 · 10 February 2007]

Like so many others in this forum, I went not expecting anything quite so special, and simply found myself caught up in the wonderful characterisation of Beatrix Potter.

The whole movie was a masterpiece of gentle pacing and subtle understatement. No pronouncements of grand passion between Beatrix and Norman, just a single dance and a single kiss, but their eyes spoke of falling in love, and that is fine acting indeed. Renee was perfect, and having lived my first 24 years in and around London, I can also say that her accent was impeccable. Some here have complained that it was too "clipped", but I'm old enough to remember the early post-war years when that was still precisely how upper class folk were supposed to speak.

10/10, and this should have been nominated for best film, instead of that appallingly pretentious trash "Babel", and Renee should have been nominated for best actress. Proves that the Oscars are rubbish.

Babel (I) (2006)

missing pieces

[6/10 · 5 February 2007]

Watching this movie was like trying to walk up a "down" escalator. You get worn out going nowhere. The political point was blatantly obvious, with the clash between developed nations and the third world being one where the latter always comes off worst. Yes, America exploits the rest of the planet, and you'd have to be Blind Freddie or George W Bush not to recognise that. Nothing new in that message, and not much subtlety in its delivery. The whole thing amounted to a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing. If I wanted a mystery I'd prefer an Agatha Christie.

Only redeeming factor was the two "best supporting" nominees, and at least the "500 things learned from Babel" thread on the IMDb message board is a good giggle. 6/10

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)

A world in which the word "martyrdom" is now so often misused should see this fine depiction of the real thing

[9/10 · 29 August 2006]

It will never become an all-time classic, so I'll give it 9/10, but it is a very fine and thought-provoking film depicting genuine martyrdom. Young lives taken, not in the act of inflicting harm on anyone else, but simply for daring to tell the truth.

My grandparents and aunts were murdered by the Nazis, and my father only narrowly escaped, so I have been motivated to research the history of that awful era, and knew of the White Rose, Sophie and Hans Scholl, and the fate they met. But this movie managed to bring them to life as three dimensional characters, not just the monochrome snapshots I had seen before.

However, the character who leapt out of the screen and captivated me due to the magnificent performance of actor Gerald Alexander Held, was the investigator Robert Mohr. He was the small town cop who joined the Nazi party and found advancement thereby. Joining the Nazi party wasn't such a surprising thing during that era. After the miseries of the WW1 defeat and the overly vindictive reparations imposed under the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazis promised impoverished ordinary Germans a new dawn, and all too many fell under its spell. We discover that even Sophie Scholl had in her formative years been a member of some schoolgirl Nazi group. We can never know how many Germans had the scales fall from their eyes as they saw the madness that Nazism represented, the sheer illogical nature of it, the climate of fear, and the mindless and arbitrary brutality. The Scholls came to recognise it while still young, no doubt assisted by the wisdom of their father. In the case of Mohr, I could feel his sharp mind responding to the contradictions of it all, as his former certainties were eroded by the courage and determination of the young woman in from of him. Another reviewer here wrote "Mohr is like someone who knows the emperor is naked but is shocked when someone says it out loud....... we see Sophie's sheer naked courage and idealistic conviction shake Mohr's blind unquestioning conformity". Yes, I felt I was watching a man undergoing a true catharsis, which was indeed evidenced by some of the contemporary reports of him at the time of the executions. Compelling viewing.

As a historical footnote, one reviewer was surprised they were guillotined, and not shot. Hitler was a big fan of the guillotine, especially for those who opposed the party, as he regarded it as the most demeaning form of execution, although in reality more swift and sure and thereby more humane than most others the Nazis used. It wasn't only a French device, but had been in use in Germany long before the Nazis, but Hitler went wild on it, and far more heads fell to Nazi guillotines than ever did during the French revolution and reign of terror. Whether Sophie's executioners were solemn men in black suits and top hats, I wouldn't know, but with the incredible rush from city courtroom to fall of the blade, the depiction that this took place in a civilian prison in Munich rather than a death camp under military control is probably correct, and maybe such clinically formal execution protocols might still have been in place. So the person who said the film lacked authentic "gruesomeness and squalor" may have been wrong.

Tristan + Isolde (2006)

Yet more pseudo historical garbage

[1/10 · 3 August 2006]

In recent times I have been subjected to both this movie and "King Arthur", on DVDs chosen by others for an evening's "entertainment" and together they achieve nothing more than bearing out a growing notion I have that the modern movie-watching public totally lacks discrimination, and is content as long as they get "action". Both movies were utter rubbish.

Whatever happened to character development? Whatever happened to meaningful dialogue? Whatever happened to ACTING? And, when watching something that vaguely purports to be "historical", whatever happened to attempting to capture some measure of accuracy, some realistic idea of the "political map" of the time, even some slight flavour of the era, especially in its social attitudes. Why do they all have to display the value set of 21st century America? I have read on the message boards of disclaimers that "little was known" of the dark ages. Not so. Considerable amounts are known, with much learned scholarship on the era, but these jokers simply couldn't be bothered to do any homework.

I only wish I could vote 0/10

Look Both Ways (2005)

Any man's death diminishes me

[10/10 · 9 January 2006]

"No man is an island, entire of itself..... Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." Those familiar words from John Donne's "Devotions" are nearly four centuries old, but they are given new voice and meaning by this brilliant movie, which picks up and shakes the "taboo" topic of death. In the 21st century we have become psychologically conditioned to avoid ever coming terms with our own mortality, but this movie confronts us with the inevitability of where we are all headed some day.

An apparently healthy and fit man in his 40s is suddenly diagnosed with cancer, and meanwhile across town another man is struck by a train. Those two key elements of the plot are revealed in the opening minutes, but thereafter they intertwine in ways that ask all sorts of challenging questions not just about death, but about how we tackle life, a formidable task that doesn't appear to get any easier as our society becomes ever more sophisticated and dominated by technology. Such a comment reminds me of the aphorism that life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% fatality rate!

Yes, "in the midst of life we are in death". Anyone who has lost someone close to them at an altogether untimely age will know how much of a struggle it can be to simply go on living. But the final conclusion on leaving the cinema was the thought on how human beings really do cope with death and adversity, and how the human spirit, though diminished in Donne's words, can rise once more to rediscover joy in life. Another IMDb reviewer described it as "life-affirming", and I will endorse that opinion.

This film about otherwise ordinary people was so moving, its message so deep and fundamental to our humanity, and so thought provoking. It has just prompted me to recall from the depths of my memory a far more contemporary quotation than Donne's, this being from the 20th century American writer Norman Cousins.

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."

Vera Drake (2004)

The human face of a timeless social issue

[10/10 · 3 January 2006]

Having been a small child in London in the era of this movie (1950/51), I found it wonderfully evocative of post-war austerity and the now seemingly lost ability of Londoners to face adversity with a cheery smile, back in a time when a cup of tea cured everything. Except pregnancy.

There's nothing new about abortion. It's a timeless social issue. But Mike Leigh addressed it in a new sharp light as he portrayed in such fine detail the human face of the desperate women and girls who sought it then, and who always will, and in Vera the ordinary woman who "helped them out". And those who hide behind the dishonest and deceptive euphemism of "pro-life" would have those very same scenes repeated all these decades later in any nation where their morally bankrupt campaign should ever succeed.

Yes, it was a movie with a message, one the world would do well to heed, and it was magnificently directed and brilliantly acted by Imelda Staunton. How Hilary Swank ever beat her for the Oscar can only be an issue of politics and nationality.

10/10. And as a man, I say may abortion forever remain available and affordable for all those women who need it.

Finding Neverland (2004)

fantasy within a fantasy

[7/10 · 25 February 2005]

This movie is a fantasy about a fantasy, and as such it poses questions as to how we should view it. As a work of art, it evokes wonderfully the 'belle epoque' that centred on the first decade of the 20th century, when life was still permitted to be beautiful before it was torn apart by the shells and mustard gas of the decade that lay in store. And it does so with characters who enter stage left, exit stage right, and deliver the occasional sensitively lit monologue along the way. The most revealing moment is a shot of barely a couple of seconds duration, when after bidding goodnight to his wife who has entered her own separate bedroom, Barrie opens the door to his and reveals the briefest glimpse of a fantasy landscape within.

This is Barrie's fantasy, and the whole story is Barrie's life as he would have wished to fantasise it. Perhaps least satisfying is his cardboard cut-out wife, whom we see portrayed as a minor hindrance to his creative genius, especially as she dares to express jealousy that he prefers to spend all his time with another woman. We don't see the jealousy of Sylvia's husband Arthur, who was sufficiently inconsiderate not to die of cancer until about 9 years after Barrie first met Sylvia, and who most definitely resented his intrusion into their family life. This emotion has been transposed into Sylvia's mother, whose antagonism towards Barrie somehow does a 180 degree flip in the five-tissue fantasy scene that brings Neverland to Sylvia's home as she is on her deathbed.

Viewed as a work of biography, it falls apart through its gross inaccuracies. Viewed as a fantasy, it really ought to spend more time in Neverland, where it really belongs. If it is to successfully bridge the gap it needs to establish the link and better explain why Barrie needed his frequent departures into Neverland, certainly going a little deeper into this than the bland statement that his brother had died. This had in fact been an utterly profound event in his childhood. His mother had referred to this brother, David, as a boy who would never grow up. It was David who was the inspiration for Peter Pan, and Peter Llewelyn Davies merely provided the name. Peter Pan first appeared on stage three years prior to Arthur's death, so it was not inspired by the tormented angst of fatherless Peter. That's fantasy.

Pretty to watch. 7/10