Change Your Image
yeadur
Reviews
American Gun (2002)
Coburn's stunning swansong
I admired Coburn but was shocked at how aged and arthritic he was in this film: but what a stunning performance - his last was his best, even better than his Oscar winning 'Affliction'. It went straight to video in the UK, which is a crying shame. Talking of crying, I wept buckets! Barbara Bain, Virginia Madsen, Alexandra Holden, Niesha Trout and Ryan Locke were also excellent, as was the direction with those clever flashes back and forward, from colour to black-and-white, e.g. old Martin at the barber's,in colour looking at his younger self in black-and-white.I was deeply disappointed by the ending, but these days 90%of a great movie is good enough for me!
Saskatchewan (1954)
A nostalgic feast
I've been to Sakatchewan and wasn't aware of many mountains in the Big Sky province, though the film claims to have been made in the locations where the alleged story took place, but what a treat, anyway! Stunning photography (wherever!), marvellous action sequences (vintage Raoul Walshe), intimidating Sioux, Ladd at his most laconic, sexy Shelly Winters before she got fat, the excellent Robert Douglas, J Carrol Naish, Jay Silverheels and Hugh O'Brien in his pre-Wyatt Earp persona. And just think - this would have been one half of a double-bill!
Arch of Triumph (1948)
Potential unfulfilled
This could have been a much better movie. Boyer's disenchanted, vengeful refugee doctor is excellent and Bergman's Joan, unable to commit or disengage, could have been a fascinating characterisation. But while individual scenes are very fine, the film, as a whole, is oddly disconnected, suggesting ruthless cutting. The sub-plot involving Laughton's porcine Gestapo bully is perfunctory and we get far too much of Calhern's emigre. Still, the black and white photography is impressive, and I rather went for the doom and gloom!
Memento (2000)
Authentic!
I'm a neuropsychiatrist who runs a Memory Clinic. This film is a MUST for others like me: the portrayal of people trapped in their present - Leonard and Sammy - is masterly and rings absolutely true. Also it manages, at times, to be legitimately hilarious about a very poignant subject. The Nolans are entitled to honorary membership of the College of Psychiatrists! (Guy Pearce is brilliant, Stephen Tobolowsky and Harriet Sansom Harris are very fine as Sammy Jankis & his wife, and Joe Pantoliano is the ultimate slime ball!) --------------------------
Dirty Pictures (2000)
James Woods: Hollywoods greatest actor?
This admirable, intelligent if occasionally formulaic TVM (it deserved to be more widely screened) makes me ask why James Woods is not acknowledged as America's best film actor? Think about it: who is a serious contender? The equally prolific but perhaps more limited de Niro? Tom Hanks (come on!)? Tom Cruise (you must be joking!)? Jack Nicholson, perhaps, in his day, which isn't now, alas? The comparable Brian Dennehey: masterly, but I think Woods has the edge. Give the man an Oscar, please! ******
Histoire d'O (1975)
True Brit!
What particularly intrigued me about this admirable screen version of Pauline Reage's classic was the involvement of Anthony Steel, hero of 'Where No Vultures Fly' & 'The Wooden Horse' as the rather baleful 'Sir Anthony', speaking good French and generally living down his clean-cut image. Erotica on the big screen don't come better than this
Hamlet (2000)
It didn't work for me
New York, 2000, and Polonius telling his daughter Ophelia that Hamlet is
too princely for her, while Laertes goes on about her 'chaste treasure'?
Far better to have set it in the real Denmark, say 20 years or more ago.
Still, Maclachnan, Venora & Shepard acquit themselves well and Julia
Stiles is an extraordinarily moving Ophelia (and I've seen dozens). The
final duel is a mess and a muddle, but the presage of Ophelia's suicide
in the swimming pool is masterly. I've no idea how Hamlet, Rosencrantz &
Guildernstern got to England - did they use the QEII? - nor how Hamlet
escaped thence, though of course it would be dead easy these day. The
Baz Luhrmann 'Romeo & Juliet' worked for me, but not, alas, this: but as
a Shakespeare completist I had t
The Game (1997)
At least it wasn't all a dream!
Kafka did it better, but this is a pretty involving conspiracy thriller,
and Douglas and Unger excel, though Penn is rather wasted. I was sure
that it would all turn out to be a dream (and it's so far-fetched that I
don't know what else it could be) but the feel-good ending matched the
prologue, and that was good enough for
Meet the Parents (2000)
OTT: more = less
The premise was so promising - diffident Jewish male nurse meets his
girl friend's WASP family and has a disastrous weekend. Ben Stiller
excels as Greg/ Gaylord, and De Niro is formidable as Jack, the future
father-in-law, but his character doesn't add up: mother- / cat-loving /
daughter-fixated psychological profiler for the CIA who seems far more
out-of-place in his neighbourhood than Greg? There are funny scenes,
like Greg's attempt at saying grace and his accidentally smashing his
girl-friend's sister in the face with a ball, but everything is
ludicrously overdone till the sentimental (the curse of Hollywood)
rapprochemont between Jack & Greg made me cr
The Land (1942)
ALMOST UNSEEN MASTERPIECE
Flaherty made this docu about the dire consequences of 100 years of over-production of cotton just as the USA was entering World War2, & it wasn't shown then, because it might give the enemy a propaganda advantage. It was, however shown on BBC TV a few years ago, & only last week at the wonderful Aldeburgh (Suffolk, UK) cinema on a proper screen, when the composer, Richard Arnell, 83, told us of his meeting as a young man with Flaherty in Washington. In fact the musical score, which fills the entire 45 minutes of the film is as striking as the poetic imagery of the dust bowl, the indigent farmers, the extreme poverty of a family living & reproducing in a shack and the mass migration to California where so few would find work. The upbeat ending, where wonderful threshing machines swiftly harvest the land, has the irony that still more labourers would be out of work. The only pity is that Flaherty, at heart a silent film director, wouldn't let his subjects speak
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
After Magritte
The high spot of this enjoyable remake is the superfluity of
bowler-hatted men (after the apple-faced Magritte painting
which, with many other masterpieces, adorns Crown's apartment)
who confuse the police when Crown returns a stolen Monet to the
Metropolitan Museum: this sequence is fast, witty and ingenious.
But Crown's sacrifice of the hapless Rumanians who helped him
with the theft in the first place sticks in the throat! Gorgeous
Rene Russo, reminds an old-timer of the splendid Angie
Dickinson, and its good to see the still lovely Faye
Nô (1998)
No, No, Yes!
Prolific man of the theatre and occasional film-maker Lepage brilliantly finds a farce among the separatists in Montreal in 1970 to match the Feydeau varierty being performed at Expo 70 in Tokyo. The link is the actress Sophie in Japan, whose boy-friend Michel in Montreal wants to write a more elegant note to go with the bomb his terrorist colleagues plan to set off in three hours' time. His confusion over Japanese and Canadian time has hilarious consequences, as does Sophie's involvement with a lecherous diplomat and his snooty wife. 'No' refers to the Quebequois vote against separation in 1980 & to a No play in Tokyo. My "Yes' is acclaim for a delicious film. Catch it if you can.
Breathing Lessons (1994)
Not as good as the book!
Though pretty faithful to Anne Tyler's Pultzer Prize winning
novel, and despite the excellent Joanne Woodward & James Garner
in the leads, this TVM adaptation is disappointingly bland. What
was hilarious in the book is only mildly funny, and what was
abrasive and infuriating is all too cosy.
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
Thrill to the chess!
How do you handle a child's genius? An excellent scene in this
remarkable movie has father Joe Montagna confronting his chess
prodigy son's hapless teacher when she refers to 'this chess
thing'. Another has angry Joan Allen ordering obsessive tutor
Ben Kingsley out of the house when he starts to bully her son. A
fourth great performance comes from Laurence Fisburne as
Kingsley's rival tutor. Masterly direction takes the film to a
cracking conclusion.