maggie-9 Reviews

Lost in Translation (2003)

Do reactions need to be so black and white?

[7/10 · 9 December 2004]

I have read a lot of the comments since at last catching up with the movie this week. Audience reactions seem to be polarised between those who love it and those that found it boring. I have neither of those reactions.

On the whole I enjoyed watching it. I have no problem with movies which take their time and each scene had something to like; whether it was cinematography, acting or situation.

But I did not love it. I was not left with a feeling of satisfaction at the end because the characters did not go on a journey which I could appreciate. I suppose the question is: do we want movies to reflect life or to tell a story. Most of the time when I am in the cinema, I want to be told a story even if the plot or resolution are somewhat unrealistic. There is enough real life out there for us all to experience. I am not asking for a conventional romantic drama but as least some conflict or temptation.

I would contrast this with another Scarlett Johanssen film, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which I enjoyed much more. This also was a slow burn of a film, but there was an outcome of sorts (the picture) and there was more love shown for the setting. Here Tokyo is caricatured and the lack of script seemed to distance us from the characters.

I don't think watching this was anything like waste of time and Copolla has talent to spare, but I wonder if I shall ever feel moved to see it again.

Chicago (2002)

Very good but not wholly satisfying

[27 January 2003]

Views on Chicago seem to be polarizing as the buzz develops while a significant minority still remain unmoved. I still have very mixed feelings.

I loved the musical numbers as such and thought the actors were well up to them. I have no problem with seeing the artificiality of musicals transferred to the screen and don't mind the idea that editing is being used to cover up the fact that the leads are not dancers.

The downside was the characters and the story. When the main characters are all thoroughly flawed and unsympathetic, it needs depth of characterization to make them interesting. There just wasn't time to allow this. I do believe that some feeling of identification between cast and audience is necessary for absolute enjoyment and I did not feel it.

Part of the problem might be the decision to divorce the style of the musical numbers completely from the style of the main action. This avoids the problem some people have with characters just bursting into song as they walk along the street but fatally compromises our ability to relate the words of the songs to the situations the characters are in. In particular, our view Roxie as a failed, rather pathetic wannabe is compromised by her appearance in razzle-dazzle numbers beautifully costumed and made up. (As an aside, I found the execution scene entirely tasteless in its juxtaposition of the realistic scene and the nightclub scene).

I enjoyed Chicago and would see it again, but at the end of the day it is more surface flash that wholly satisfying moviemaking.

Minority Report (2002)

I'm sorry - I need to believe in something in a movie - mild spoilers

[5/10 · 23 June 2002]

Most of those who have seen Minority report appear to like it but it did very little for me. From the first moment I heard about the plot, I had doubts about the concept. Infallible pre-cognition and arresting people before they commit a crime are ideas which, on close examination, have so many holes in them that more suspension of belief is needed than I can cope with. (There have been much more interesting plots which postulated forms of pre-cognition which were much less reliable and therefore much more interesting) If you add to the problems of the main premise the physical characteristics of the world portrayed, which are inconsistent and in some cases pretty ridiculous, and it all becomes too much. I did not believe that the pre-cogs would be able to stay alive in the environment shown or then cope out of it, I did not believe that the police would fly around in such clunky machines when they could build such aerodynamically engineered cars. And I don't believe there is any way this can happen by 2054. Why didn't they just make it far further into the future?

There were a few good things and Spielberg is always an interesting director. But these cannot weigh against what, in essence, was a pretty weak thriller based on an unacceptable premise.

And then on top of it we have Cruise at his grungiest and most unappealing. I really should go with my gut instinct and not subject myself to things I strongly suspect I am not going to like but hope springs eternal.

Amélie (2001)

Maybe it's me but after a while the quirkiness palls-MILD SPOILERS

[29 January 2002]

I tend not to write comments on well-reviewed films which I have myself hugely enjoyed. It is when I feel somewhat let down that I want to analyse why. It is certainly not because I despise sentimentality (I am a notorious weeper at movies, even in the happy bits) or I don't like foreign films (because I see many). I found the first half an hour or so absolutely hilarious, funnier than anything I have seen recently. But after a while I felt irritation building. I found myself feeling that Amelie was unnecessarily toying with Nino, and I felt that I didn't know her well enough as a real person to sympathise with her actions. When I lost some touch with the story around the middle, the style of film-making became overwhelming and I was noticing that style rather than the action. I found myself preferring the somewhat more naturalistic scenes in the cafe than Amelie's doings. There was much I liked (including the globetrotting gnome and the matter-of-fact porn shop) and I did enjoy it much more than many films I have seen recently, but I still cannot feel part of the general feeling of love shown by most reviewers.

Care (2000 TV Movie)

Unbearably sad with a harrowing performance by Steven Mackintosh

[10/10 · 1 August 2001]

I am not sure what the previous reviewer meant by saying that something in this film was amusing. Amusing it is not. But it grabs you and pulls you in and you can't stop watching. Steven Mackintosh is superb and his last scene was so sad. The loyal strength of his girlfriend is also immensely touching.

Quite a number of important points are made about problems like child abuse. The most important is the way lawyers and insurance companies can push an organisation into a cover-up. Another is that, hard as this might be to accept, Davey and the others would have been better off if the case had never been investigated. It is giving evidence and not being believed which pushes him to the edge, not the original abuse. A terrible dilemma.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Enjoyable, fluffy: why all the angst?

[27 July 2001]

This film has only just opened in Australia and I don't normally post anything about films with a couple of hundred existing comments. But I have been surprised at how seriously people have taken it and the dislike which seems to flow from that. I like a good light romantic comedy (OK, if you like, a chick flick). And this is one. Quite a good one of its kind and well acted. Enjoy.

PS I haven't lived in the UK for twenty years but I was born in London and lived in the London area until to moved to Australia. It most certainly does snow, not every year and more after Christmas than at Christmas but it does happen. In fact I distinctly remember once abandoning my car in a huge snowdrift in central London and walking with difficulty five miles to my home in South London.

Great Performances: La bohème (1994) Season 22, Episode 15

Not very clear in the credits but this is Baz Luhrmann's wonderful production of the opera

[10/10 · 5 June 2001]

With Moulin Rouge doing well at the box office at the moment, I decided to see whether the IMDB contained an entry for the video of Luhrmann's original opera production La Boheme, the one that contains the huge rooftop sign saying L'Amour, which also features in Moulin Rouge. Well, it's here but no user comments at all. What a shame!

This Australian production is a wonderful La Boheme, more like a musical than an opera and not really for opera buffs. At the time of its first production it really was a production of the young, all the main singers as well as designer Catherine Martin and Baz himself being under thirty. The singers are good but not the very best, but most non-opera lovers will trade that in for singers who look the part. David Hobson is great looking as is Cheryl Barker who really does look consumptive at the end. And they can act. In the curtain calls at the end Hobson is really crying. This is emphatically not one of those opera productions where you desperately try to forget that the singers are middle-aged, decidedly rotund and definitely not suffering.

The design is beguiling, setting the opera in 1950s Paris complete with cool leather jackets, new look dresses and bright lights amid post-war drabness. It is stagey, because this is a video of a stage production but the original direction was very fluid and the set works beautifully. As with all updating there are problems with anachronisms (no wall around Paris is a problem). But these are small points. This was Baz Luhrmann's first hurrah and a great one too. Don't know how readily available it is but rush to see it if you can.

Memento (2000)

Still not sure what I think (major spoilers)

[8 April 2001]

I find that with most films I am pretty sure of my reaction on leaving or soon after. This is the exception. I still don't know what I think.

This is undoubtedly a cleverly-made and extremely well-acted piece, with Guy Pearce a standout. It is based on an excellent idea, mostly well carried out. So why am I not sure I have witnessed a great film?

For one thing I think the device of working back through the story became somewhat mechanical towards the middle. I was rather tired and actually found myself nodding off a bit and having to force myself to concentrate.

Secondly, I discovered with the Usual Suspects that there is something quite unsatisfying about a movie in which nothing that has happened may have been real. With Memento, what actually happens in the film is quite real; that is, Lenny is angry because of what Teddy tells him and he makes a conscious decision to record information about Teddy which will lead him (after he has forgotten the actual conversation) to hunt Teddy down and kill him believing that Teddy is his wife's killer. The trouble is, we can't believe Teddy ourselves and therefore we know nothing at all at the end about Lenny, nothing about his wife, nothing about whether his memories of Sammy are real, just nothing. I found this unsatisfying. I don't demand that all ends get tied up but some resolution is needed.

I think ultimately I didn't actually believe in the validity of Lenny's condition as portrayed. My feeling is that, if such a condition exists, it would be infinitely more disabling than shown, (more in fact like the portrayal of Sammy than of Lenny). It might be argued that movies can set their own rules but this is a movie which invites us to think about it. The trouble is, some movies begin to break up when you think about them too much, the inconsistencies appear and you lose the emotion you might have had when watching them.

Several comments have mentioned that the movie deserved more than an art house release. Here in Australia, it is showing at my local multiplex, and has been quite extensively advertised. But I think quite a lot of the audience will feel uncomfortable with it. Not because they are too thick to understand it but because, ultimately, our possible concern for Lenny (generated mostly by Guy Pearce's performance) is dissipated by the self-conscious technique of the story.

I'm still not sure if, for me, this was a flawed masterpiece or a waste of time.

Silas Marner (1985 TV Movie)

A beautiful adaptation withe a fine performance by Kingsley

[2 March 2001]

I am very surprised that there are no comments at all on this wonderful TV adaptation of one of George Eliot's thankfully shorter books. The plot of the book is rather melodramatic but it basically doesn't matter because the film concentrates on the strange and moving story of Silas himself, who falls into despair and becomes a recluse and miser when he is wrongly accused of a crime and is saved by the unexpected appearance in his life of a small child.

Put this way, it sounds mawkish, but Silas is wonderfully handled by Ben Kingsley. He is a great actor who quietly inhabits every part he plays. The story is also about the importance of community. It is only when Silas becomes part of the village of Raveloe and its basically welcoming people that his life begins to turn around.

I am a notorious weeper at movies and I cried a lot when I rented this, not at the sad bits but at the parts when Silas realises that he is not alone. For all those who like period movies (the late 18th century scene is well recreated) and character-driven plots.

What Lies Beneath (2000)

A waste of time

[7 November 2000]

I came out of this feeling that it was a waste of time. It was competently made but cliched in the extreme. There was nothing new or interesting about it. Large elements of the plot setup came to nothing or were hardly used. The first part was very slow, the last part just descended into silliness. Essentially boring.



How many films have we seen with the following: 1. A menaced woman who goes on exposing herself to menace instead of going home to Mum until it all blows over. 2. Someone investigating a murder goes to the home of the victim's parents. They are working class, uneducated and still devastated and have made a shrine of their daughter's room. Despite the fact that their visitor has no credentials, they allow him or her in, pour out their feelings and let the visitor roam around the house. 3. An apparently dead villain comes back to life and unexpected grabs at the victim (in this case twice). I would have thought Scream would have laughed this one out of court.

The plot made little of the Ford character's lack of success as a scientist and the whole neighbour bit should have come to something. I thought the motive for the crime was very thin. According to her gravestone the victim was 24 when she died, hardly cradle-snatching. If she made it public, would that have really been so terrible? It would have been much more plausible if his scientific reputation had been obtained by fraud in order to keep up with his father. If his lover knew about that and threatened to tell, it would have been a much better motive and would have tied up with his psychological problems much better. You could even work in the neighbours. If the scientist owned their house as well, he might have let them live there because the man had helped with the fraud, and even the murder. Just a suggestion to a scriptwriter with few ideas.

Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Worth seeing more than once

[25 April 2000]

I rarely see films more than once in the cinema, especially when I didn't particular feel it was a great film the first time. So I was somewhat annoyed with my husband insisting we see it after I had already been with a friend. The result was a great surprise. I loved every minute.

We usually watch films for their plot and one which is meandering and shifts unexpectedly between different characters and situations confuses us. A second viewing allows us to sit back and appreciate each moment for itself. Knowing who everybody is in advance is also a great help. For example, most viewers probably don't appreciate that the actor George Grossmith, a major character in the second half, has already appeared in two lengthy extracts from Princess Ida and the Sorcerer before we see him as himself.

There is also the opportunity to marvel at the artistic design. Some reviewers have complained about the claustrophobic nature of the film, but that is exactly what was intended. The interiors are amongst the most lovingly realised I have ever seen on the screen.

I still believe that this is to some extent a self-indulgent piece which would have been improved with tighter editing and the discarding of some beautifully acted but distracting scenes. I also have some sympathy with viewers who know nothing about G&S. A few words of explanation at the beginning as to who G$S and D'Oyly Carte were would not have come amiss.

Nevertheless it is still hugely enjoyable view into a completely different world, well worth seeing.

The Cider House Rules (1999)

Simple style a breath of fresh air

[9/10 · 25 April 2000]

I think I was primed to like this film after seeing so many recently where there is a triumph of style over substance (notably the dreadful Snow Falling on Cedars) or a mania for shaky hand-held camera work and ever-shifting focus (as in the Insider).

The Cider House Rules is filmed very simply and traditionally, with very beautiful cinematography. The acting is very good and the story (while predictable) held my attention. Michael Caine is superb and well deserved the oscar.

The Insider (1999)

Not as good as I expected it to be

[25 February 2000]

The insider was one of those films I was hyped up to see because of all the positive vibes about it coming from the US. Maybe this was the problem. My expectations were too high.

There were two problems for me. The first is that I don't find Al Pacino a very interesting actor these days. He seems to repeat the same mannerisms from film to film and his character (the crusading journalist forced to betray his principles) is one seen in many films. The dilemma of the whistleblower himself (played very well by Russell Crowe) was much more interesting but didn't get enough screen time for real insight.

The second problem was the directing style. None of the methods used is poor in itself. The trouble is that everything was overused. I kept noticing every unnecessary camera jerk, focus change or cut. If you find yourself consciously noticing style and missing the substance of the story, something is wrong. Also the sound was often muddy and the music intrusive.

This is not a bad film by any means. I don't regret going to see it but, in my opinion, it does not have the greatness claimed by so many.

I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)

One of the great and quirky Powell and Pressburger films

[22 December 1998]

This film stars two actors with among the greatest voices in cinema history, Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller. She is travelling up to the far western isles of Scotland at the end of the second world war to marry a rich man for his money. The interminable journey takes her out of prosaic reality into a different world where she meets and inevitably falls in love with the impossibly romantic (whether in uniform or kilt) laird of the island which her fiance has rented.

This sounds like a fairly standard romance but it has all kinds of touches of fantasy which make it a real Powell and Pressburger triumph, including a surreal dream sequence in which she dreams of being married to her fiance's company rather than to him.

A lovely film.

The Bridge (1991)

Atmospheric slow-moving historical drama

[8/10 · 18 October 1998]

A fictional story based on a painting by English 19C painter, Philip Wilson Steer. Depicts the growing attraction between Steer and a married woman amid the confines of Victorian society. Slow-moving but well-acted with beautiful images of the Norfolk coast, it ultimately has an unsatisfying ending and you might wonder what the point was. Nevertheless, worth watching.