ginger_sonny Reviews

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

The definitive spaghetti western

[10/10 · 30 December 2004]

One of the best westerns ever made. Boasts an unforgettable Morricone score, a typically charismatic performance from Clint Eastwood and stately direction from the master of the genre, Sergio Leone With A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone gave birth to the spaghetti western. So it is appropriate that he should take the helm for the quintessential example of the genre with this, the best and last of the Dollars trilogy (after 1965's For A Few Dollars More).

Anti-epic, brutal and displaying an often overlooked gallows humour, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly centres on the aptly described protagonists. Eastwood (The Man With No Name - other than 'Blondie', or the Good), Van Cleef (Angel Eyes, or the Bad) and Wallach (Tuco, or the Ugly) are the three degrees of moral ambiguity searching Civil War-torn America for a buried payroll.

In truth, however, the plot is incidental to the film's appeal. The spectacularly bleak landscapes, Morricone's cheekily melodramatic score, and the physical interplay between the leading men all contribute to the film's (and Eastwood's) iconic status.

The finale's showdown is an inspired set-piece of sweaty tension and invention that has been blatantly lifted by directors all over the world from Woo to Tarantino. As cool as a cheroot in a heatwave.

Verdict Sergio Leone's masterpiece is as enduring as the scorched desert in which it is filmed. Also receives props for most effective use of whistling ever.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

Second part of a legendary trilogy

[8/10 · 30 December 2004]

The Man With No Name joins forces with Van Cleef's fellow bounty hunter in this sequel, to take on a psychotic bandit and his gang (including a hunchback Klaus Kinski) The second spaghetti western in Leone's trilogy that includes A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Rival bounty hunters (Eastwood and Van Cleef) compete for the scalp of vicious bandit El Indio (Volonte) before striking an uneasy alliance to catch their man.

Leone's trademark motifs are all present and correct: taciturn, sweat-drenched men of dubious morals scurry through panoramic landscapes to Morricone's artful, twanging score. The film also includes social concerns of Church and family that were absent in 'A Fistful..'. Clint is Clint, but Lee Van Cleef's black-hearted Colonel Mortimer is memorably sinister. Psychopathic though the main characters are, the film is also charged with a mordant sense of humour that refreshes its gun-slinging machismo. Look out for Klaus Kinski, unexpectedly cast as a grovelling hunchback.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

The birth of a legend

[9/10 · 30 December 2004]

Leone's first spaghetti western founded a legendary sub-genre. Clint Eastwood (who else?) is the super-cool, amoral gunslinger who seeks to profit from the bloody struggle between two frontier families This massively influential film was where Clint Eastwood gave birth to his legendary Man With No Name, a grizzled, sharp-shooting loner who here profits from a small-town feud. He's the sort of guy who'll strike a match on your stubble, save your boy from a burning barn and steal your woman without a glance.

This was the first spaghetti western, shot mainly on location in Spain's dusty landscapes by an international crew and cast. Whereas the traditional western had clear moral boundaries, between the good and the bad, the cowboys and the indians, director Leone chose a more ambiguous world and, in doing so, opened up the frontiers of a new and vibrant genre. Values are blurred, violence is stylised, the story is a steal from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and the score comes, of course, from Ennio Morricone.

The King of Comedy (1982)

And now for something different...

[8/10 · 30 December 2004]

Scorsese took a break from the gangster films to make this brilliantly executed piece about a stand-up, who will stop at nothing to get his big break on TV Whenever Scorsese makes a comedy it has an edge to it (remember the nightmarish situation in After Hours?) and King of Comedy is no exception.

This is a movie which makes you shudder even as it is making you laugh. De Niro stars as Rupert Pupkin, the would-be stand-up whose ambition is far more impressive than his act. He is obsessed with becoming a star, and goes to extreme lengths when talk-show host Jerry Langford (Lewis) refuses him a slot on his programme.

De Niro is both tragic and ghastly as the over-ambitious, psychotic Pupkin, trapped in a weird fantasy world, while Lewis is, ironically, funnier than he has ever been in what is technically the straight-man role.

A deliciously dark commentary on the fine line between fame and infamy, which goes to great lengths to show just how far some people will go to achieve the former.

Verdict Worlds away from the bravura flash of other DeNiro-Scorsese collaborations, this underrated, claustrophobic, chilling satire is particularly prescient of today's celebrity-fixated society. A modern classic.

Shark Tale (2004)

Appealing, funny, but ultimately unrewarding

[18 October 2004]

DreamWorks rolls out big-hitting voice overs - Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Renée Zellweger and more - for this CGI underwater romp about what happens when a shy shark crosses paths with an ambitious fish

Since Disney and DreamWorks raised the bar by putting CGI and knowing humour into their films in the 1990s (with hits such as Toy Story and Antz), animated movies have changed. Romance and songs are still important, but positive responses from grown-ups are also elicited. References are slotted into scripts that only adults will understand, nods given to other movies and celebrity voice overs heartily encouraged. These are the things that will get adults trooping into the multiplex - naturally, with their children in tow.

DreamWorks' Shark Tale works this style very well. Considered by some the company's comeback to Disney's Finding Nemo, its cast list is much more top-drawer, with each character's features matching the actor giving them their voice. De Niro's shark has a mole and a drooping mouth, Zellweger's angel fish the same quirky smile, Scorsese's puffa fish the director's wild eyebrows. And then come the references to other movies. The Great Whites are an underwater Mafia family, puffing on cigars and hosting elaborate funerals like The Godfather's Corleones (scripting in Joe Pesci's "Am I a clown to you?" speech from GoodFellas beefs up these credentials). The ocean is a capitalist haven - apart from one public spirited poster for Tuna History Month - full of chain stores like Gup and billboards for Coral-Cola. One shark sings the Jaws theme tune to make himself scarier - while another camply comes out of the closet as a vegetarian.

However funny these references are, Shark Tale prides style over substance. Its plot suffers as a result, swooping clumsily between its two major characters, Lenny (Black) and Oscar (Smith). Lenny is an effeminate shark whose father Don Lino (De Niro) wants to toughen him up (unlike the similarly single father in Finding Nemo, who is fiercely protective of his charge). Lino wants Lenny and his brother Frankie (Imperioli, from 'The Sopranos') to take over the family business; Oscar (Smith) is a fish who works in a whale wash and wants to be "at the top of the reef where the somebody's live".

Their paths cross when Frankie is training Lenny in the dark arts of machismo. Frankie tragically dies, and Oscar, from then on, is mistakenly thought to be a shark slayer. Leaving his best friend Angie (Zellweger) down at the ocean floor, still desperately in love with him, Oscar joins forces with Lenny and the corrupt Sykes (Scorsese) to nurture his fame. A money-digging lion fish Lola (Jolie) latches onto him, a Jessica Rabbit with fins. Despite the fame and the accolades, of course, things soon fall apart for our shark slaying friend, and our hero learns the error of his ways.

The morals here are basic enough - don't cheat your way to the top; don't go looking elsewhere for what you can find at home; be proud of who you are. Nevertheless, this morality is only engaging when applied to Lenny, a truly adorable character - voiced well by Black - who carries the film. Smith's Oscar, on the other hand, is intensely annoying, and you cringe at his energetic outbursts. He's especially embarrassing when bantering with the West Indian jellyfish, whose heads are turned into tams. Characters' attitudes also change completely as the film comes to a close; De Niro becomes sympathetic and Smith becomes lovelorn. The storyline is secondary to the bells and the whistles, which is Shark Tale's ultimate flaw.

Verdict The special effects may be appealing, and the script often funny, but this tale is clumsy and clunky, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Resident Evil (2002)

Glossy entertainment

[18 October 2004]

Glossy horror based on the best-selling video games. A group of commandos have to infiltrate an underground base - unfortunately it's defended by a ruthless artificial intelligence and is full of hungry zombies

Five years after it was first mooted, the movie adaptation of Capcom's bestselling video game arrives, helmed by Paul Anderson, the Briton responsible for hit video game movie Mortal Kombat and costly flop Soldier.

Thankfully, Anderson and the producers were fans of the game (and its sequels), and were adamant that that its distinctive, chilling tone be transferred to film. Unfortunately, the filmmakers also managed to incorporate some rubbish of their own. Where the game was scary because of the player's depth of involvement, the film fails to fully engage due to poor characterisation and a pretty lame story.

Eschewing literally using the plot of the first 'Resident Evil' game, the film maintains the basic premise of an isolated mansion and a feisty heroine (Andseron calls the film "the explanatory prequel"). Alice (Jovovich) awakes in the shower with amnesia. While wandering around in the empty mansion she's joined by "cop" Matt (Mabius) before the sudden SAS-style arrival of a group of commandos, lead by One (Salmon), then later by Rain (Rodriguez) when he gets splatted. In some leaden exposition, One walks and talks Alice - and us - through the set-up. The mansion is a cover for a secret lab - the Hive - belonging to the ubiquitous Umbrella Corporation. A virus has been released in the Hive, killing all the staff. The lab has been sealed by the Red Queen, a "state of the art artificial intelligence" (who sounds like a schoolgirl reading out an essay in class). The commandos must enter the lab - taking Alice, Matt and a further amnesiac, Spence (Purefroy), with them - and retrieve the fruits of the research. These fruits turn out to be highly dubious bio-weapons, in the form of not just the zombie-creating 'T-virus', but also in the form of further monstrosities (such as 'the Licker').

Resident Evil just about works. The characterisation and scripting seem sadly cursory, and devices such as giving characters amnesia are tired, but the overall dynamic is effective. The few stabs at story depth are cackhanded - Umbrella is made the quintessence of pervasive, all-powerful corporations; Matt has an earnest little speech about its evils ("Companies like Umbrella think they're above the law, but they're not."). However, there's some good horror here - zombies are always fun, but Anderson puts some effort into making them a worrying presence rather than simply a justification for gore. The look of the film relates nicely to the games too. While it's frequently glossy, it also gets moodier in places, hinting at the grim, lonely atmospherics of the games.

The film's biggest coup comes at the end. It's giving nothing away to say the heroine makes it, but her fate superbly sets the story up for a sequel. George A Romero fans should also look out for a explicit nod to Day Of The Dead in the closing seconds.

Verdict As a piece of quality cinema, Resident Evil just doesn't qualify. But as a slickly-produced piece of trash - and, more importantly, as an adaptation of a video game - it holds its own.

21 Grams (2003)

How much does love weigh?

[13 September 2004]

From the Mexican writer and director team behind Amores Perros comes this powerful English-language drama set in an unnamed American city, once again concerning three lives that intersect after a car accident

'Intense' is probably the best word to describe 21 Grams, a muscular, heavyweight effort from director Alejandro González Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga, the men responsible for the sensational Amores Perros. Like that earlier effort, 21 Grams hinges on a car-crash, and deals with three intertwining stories concerning such major themes as death, redemption and guilt. The difference being that while the segments in Amores Perros brushed past each other, here the fractured narratives converge with as much impact as the crash that kickstarts them.

Delicately structured in a manner that recalls Christopher Nolan's Following, by which past, present and future sequences jostle next to each other right from the off, the film makes no attempt to specify lapses of time between events. Gradually, like a jigsaw, the story comes together - though some audience members may resent such a method, particularly given that there is no discernible reason for this structure other than dissecting and dividing up the human misery on show.

What becomes revealed is that 41-year-old critically ill mathematics professor Paul (Penn) is in dire need of a heart transplant. Encouraged by his wife Mary (Gainsbourg) to pursue the treatment, it's clear that she wants Paul alive so he can sire her a child. During his journey, he falls for drug-addicted Christina (Watts), a woman grieving over the loss of her family in the aforementioned crash, caused by Jack (Del Toro) - a man who will go through his own spiritual awakening following the tragedy. The bonds run far deeper than this, but to reveal too much would spoil the film's intent, which releases its information sparingly and via a means that allows us to observe, rather than participate, in the emotions on display.

The title - not explained until the conclusion - refers to the weight lost the moment a body dies, which some believe is due to the loss of the soul. Indeed, matters spiritual and religious feature at the core of the film, though the philosophical debate implied by the title is never really touched upon. Arriaga's script is more concerned with questioning God Himself and the sorrow he heaps upon his creations, notably via the character of Paul.

Shot in a gritty, bleached-out style that intensifies the story on display, the performances from all three leads are equally as raw. While Penn, who won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his role, and Del Toro are as solid as you would expect, it's Watts who surprises most of all, with the best turn of her career to date. A role that looks as if she went to Hell and back for, she looks as battered as the audience will feel by the end.

Verdict:

While not as wholly satisfying as Amores Perros, 21 Grams asks some huge questions that cannot easily be answered, doing so in a style that will stimulate you up until the finale.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Uma Thurman will....Kill Bill

[13 September 2004]

Uma Thurman is the avenging angel in this long-awaited fourth film from Quentin Tarantino. Intense gory martial arts action

Crime boss O'Ren-Ishii (Liu) paces the gallery of the House Of Blue Leaves, watching her subordinates take on The Bride (Thurman), a samurai-sword wielding blonde dressed in a natty, blood-stained yellow tracksuit. As The Bride disembowels and decapitates a dozen yakuza flunkies, pausing only to rip out the eye of one assailant to uncork another plume of blood, one wonders: what does all this mean for feminism?

The first volume of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill sees women stalk one another as remorselessly as Sergio Leone's nameless gunfighters. Men hardly get a look in. The face of the titular Bill is concealed from us throughout. In place of machismo, we have a ferocious femininity - the snarl of a mother protecting her child. A different strain of aggression drives this action movie, maternal yet predatory. Tarantino riffs on this with his opening fight where the Bride and Vernita Green (Fox) break off from their knife duel when Green's daughter returns from school.

The Bride is after vengeance. After taking a beating at the hands of her former colleagues from the The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, the final bullet to her head is delivered by Bill, who also happens to be father of the unborn child. Waking from a four-year long coma, the Bride clutches at her empty womb and unleashes a feral howl. It is a searing moment from Thurman, who showed up to work on the film only two months after giving birth. What does this mean for feminism? Hard to say, except perhaps that hell hath no fury like a heavily pregnant woman gunned down on her wedding day.

A self-conscious interweaving of numerous exploitation genres - in this volume, the influence of Japanese samurai movies and the ultra violence of Takeshi Miike (Ichi The Killer) are particularly strong - unfortunately one also thinks of McG's Charlie's Angels films. Superficially, at least. What with all these kick-ass chicks and Lucy Liu strutting her stuff. In fact, Kill Bill is the anti-Charlie's Angels. It is a deliberate riposte to the cartoon kung fu, lukewarm Matrix leftovers, and shoddy CGI - what Tarantino dismisses as all that "computer game bullshit" - that Hollywood has been dallying with while the director was away. Where McG's franchise speeds you through its incompetence, Tarantino dawdles to shade in more characterisation, to fill in back story, to embellish every inch of the plot before marking it with a signature flourish. The director of the 90s is back and he might as well have signed the right hand corner of every frame.

Unfortunately, he is so brimming with ideas and ambition that his film had to cut in two to meet the needs of distributors. Miramax took this course of action rather than edit their one-time wunderkind. An unsympathetic studio might have trimmed the extended anime sequence about O'Ren-Ishii's troubled childhood, for example, although this is an intense treat depicting events almost too agonizing and heartbreaking to witness in live action.

Kill Bill arrives at a moment in mainstream movies - between the second and third Matrix films, before the final part of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, ahead of another bloated Harry Potter installment - where Hollywood is willing to test the bladder strength and patience of its audience like never before. Whether it is the fashion for director's cuts or DVD deleted scenes, it is a contemporary truism that art is best served if the excised portions are restored. With this spirit in mind, the dividing of Tarantino's epic into two volumes may be seen as a victory for integrity. However, cynics may suggest that numerous installments mean punters shelling out more times for the same film, both in the cinemas and again for the various extended DVD editions.

Whichever way you want to slice it, this is only half a film. Though it contains many pleasures - and it's great to see such an influential director returning with such a stylistically exuberant work - it is missing the classic satisfying element of any story: an ending.

Verdict A blood-stained love letter to exploitation movies that seems to be missing a few pages.

Amores Perros (2000)

Outstanding

[13 September 2004]

An outstanding debut from Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, the impassioned Amores Perros splices together three interlocking stories which cut the across the class divides of contemporary Mexico City

'Love's A Bitch' is the title's English translation, and this visceral drama is all about love's terrifying fragility, its destructiveness, and the pain its loss entails, as well as the redemption it can offer us in the bleakest of circumstances. There's already been controversy about the involvement of real animals in the dog-fight sequences - but the dogs are also used as a symbols of human cruelty, suffering and affection, revealing something fundamental about their owners' characters.

A fatal car crash, which opens the film, links its trio of tales. Part one, with its frenetic hand-held camera-work and jagged cutting, involves unemployed teenager Octavio (Bernal), who dreams of running away with his sister-in-law Susana (Bauche). He becomes involved in the underground dog-fighting scene, where his pet Rottweiler Cofi turns out to be a lethal contestant. Cofi is shot by a rival handler, whom Octavio stabs, precipitating the deadly high-speed chase through the city.

The second section charts the deteriorating relationship between a married magazine editor and a beautiful fashion model Valeria (Toledo), who is left seriously injured in the collision with Octavio's car on the day the couple set up home together. Meanwhile in the final segment, a former left-wing terrorist turned hit man El Chivo (Chevarria) wanders the streets, picking up stray mongrels, which is how he finds the dying Cofi amid the automobile wreckage.

Given its tripartite structure, dark humour and scenes of scalding violence, Amores Perros has, unsurprisingly, attracted comparisons to Pulp Fiction. But it's actually a richer, more humane work, in which the tyro director displays an impressive command of the medium - confidently shifting between styles and genres - as well as a commendable compassion for his fellow human beings.

Following (1998)

British genius

[13 September 2004]

Vital and inventive British film about a man who becomes obsessed with randomly picking people out in the street and following them

Bill becomes obsessed with picking people out in the street at random and following them. He is drawn into the criminal underworld when he chooses to follow a burglar, Cobb, who catches him in the act and encourages him to take things further...

This is a rare and inventive British film, one not concerned with being flavour of the month in the style mags. Its low budget is displayed like a badge of pride, which is refreshing rather than annoying. It runs out of steam before the end, but Nolan hints at something very special here.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

superlative defying

[10/10 · 31 August 2004]

Gael García Bernal and Rodrigo De La Serna star in Walter Salles adaptation of Che Guevara's journals written while travelling in South America in 1952

Uniquely, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara stands as an icon of both politics and pop, that ubiquitous headshot by Alberto Korda a symbol of dissent from Camden Town to Caracas. Indeed, so much mythical baggage surrounds Che-the-revolutionary that Ernesto-the-man has almost vanished.

Walter Salles' magnificent adaptation of Guevara's 'The Motorcycle Diaries', and his travelling companion Alberto Granado's memoir 'Travelling With Che Guevara', vividly humanizes the legend while honouring the life - or at least a version of it. Part road-movie, part rite of passage, this is a film that avoids noisy rabble-rousing in favour of a funny, subtle and poignant tribute to friendship and burgeoning idealism.

It begins in Buenos Aires in 1952 as 29-year-old biochemist Alberto Granado (De La Serna) and asthma-stricken 23-year-old medical student Ernesto Guevara De La Serna (Bernal) prepare to embark on a mammoth road trip through Latin America. The objective: girls, beer and self-discovery. The means: a 1939 Norton motorbike nicknamed, with some irony, 'The Mighty One'. "The method," says Ernesto, "improvisation."



Early scenes are full of the romance of the undertaking, Alberto good-naturedly conniving his way to a meal and a bed while Ernesto moons over Chichina (Maestro), the girl he's left behind. But by the time they reach Chile a new reality is emerging, far removed from the comparative luxury of middle-class Argentina. With the bike written off in an accident Ernesto and Alberto continue hitching until they enter the Atacama Desert. There they encounter a poverty-stricken, homeless couple, thrown off their land because they're Communists.

For Ernesto it's a pivotal moment, an introduction to inequality that offends his sense of justice. Salles responds by darkening the tone as Ernesto and Alberto begin to look into and beyond themselves. In Machu Picchu in Peru, then in Cuzco and Lima they meet whole communities disenfranchised by progress. Finally, at a leper colony on the Amazon, they find some practical use for their medical skills, but even here Ernesto refuses to recognise the division between the sick and the well.

Spectacularly shot on location in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Cuba, Salles vividly summons a Latin America that's simultaneously exotic and harsh. Bernal, so effective in Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También, finds in Ernesto quiet dignity and a growing sense of purpose, his graduation from awkward student to nascent revolutionary negotiated with charisma and conviction. Perpetually hungry and horny, Alberto stands as Ernesto's comic foil, yet tentative encounters between the pair and the people they meet on their travels - improvised by the actors in the spirit of the original trip - have the naturalness of documentary footage.

Unavoidably, Che's legacy hangs over the film and the final scene, in which Ernesto and Alberto say goodbye, is laced with poignancy: by 1959 Che would be fighting with Castro in Cuba; in 1967, aged 39, he was shot by the CIA in Bolivia. But the film succeeds because all this remains where it belongs - in the future. Instead Salles creates a stirring odyssey of self-discovery which, in its romantic conception of friendship and hope, and its freewheeling celebration of youth, is tender and unexpectedly uplifting.



Verdict A spectacularly realised road movie that offers an affective and affectionate portrait of young Che, and also a gloriously romantic coming of age tale set against a magnificently photographed Latin American backdrop.

Gangster No. 1 (2000)

gritty and violent

[31 August 2004]

Fable of London criminals switching time-frames between the present and the 60s. Both the casting of Malcolm McDowell and the film's look indicate the influence of Kubrick on debut director Paul McGuigan

There have been far too many British gangster films in recent times. But there is always room for one that bucks the generally mediocre trend, and this is it.

McDowell is an unnamed ageing gangland boss who has just heard that his former mentor Freddie Mays (Thewlis) is being released from prison. That leads him to recall his rise as Mays' henchman in the 60s.

Rather than the normal Scorsese or Coppola borrowings, McGuigan seems to have chosen Kubrick as his model, and not just in the casting of Clockwork Orange star McDowell: the whole feel of the film is visually ambitious.

Bettany is very good as McDowell's ruthless younger self, learning the ropes from how to dress to impress to how to kill a man. And Thewlis, rather more elegant than usual, matches him as the boss who underestimates the psychopathic nature of his protege. Make no mistake, this is an extraordinarily violent film in places, but this is preferable to 'they looked after their mum' Kray twin mythology that usually softens the image of London's crimelords.

If the film has a flaw, it is that the 60s middle segment is a lot stronger than the present day scenes that book end the film. But that's a quibble: stylistically daring and often terrifying, Gangster No 1 is the rare British crime thriller that is worth your time.

Sexy Beast (2000)

a deliciously unpredictable British gangster film

[31 August 2004]

Ex-criminal Ray Winstone's idyllic retirement is disrupted when Ben Kingsley asks, nay demands, that he do one more job. Another Brit-gangster flick. No wait, come back!

While there may come a time when Ray Winstone is known for playing bespectacled nuclear physicists rather than cockney criminals it has to be said that this is most definitely not it. Nor is the casting of Winstone the only predictable thing about Sexy Beast, being the tale of retired Costa Del Crime blagger Gary 'Gal' Dove (Winstone) tempted out of retirement for one last job.

Where Sexy Beast starts to deviate from the norm is in the casting of Ben Kingsley as Don Logan, the man doing the tempting. Given that Logan is a full-on 24/7 psychopath who rapidly sets about putting a hob-nailed boot through the blissful existence which Gal has created with wife DeeDee (Redman) the obvious approach would have been to cast someone capable of physically going-head-to-head - not to mention belly-to-belly - with Winstone.

Yet, like Anthony Hopkins in the Hannibal movies, what Kingsley lacks in brute strength he more than makes up for in the mind games department. The nerve-rending scenes in which the onetime Gandhi attempts to wear down his reluctant 'friend' show that director Glazer's graduation from directing pop promos is well overdue. To expand more plot-wise would be to spoil the fun except to say that, while things go predictably awry, they do so in a nicely unpredictable manner.

Mention should also be made of the excellent supporting cast, not least Ian McShane who puts in the kind of out-there-where-the-trains-don't-go performance that will make you look at those 'Lovejoy' repeats in an entirely new light.

Verdict Stands head and shoulders above the late 90s flurry of British gangster movies. Stylish and confident and built upon a fearsome performance from Ben Kinglsey.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

more Coen genius

[31 August 2004]

Jeff Bridges is the exquisitely stoned Dude. John Goodman is Walter the crazed Nam veteran. The Coen brothers direct. A fantastic combination

Fargo was always going to be a hard act to follow, but the Coen Brothers succeeded with this off-the-wall bowling comedy turned kidnap thriller.

Bridges is 'The Dude' Lebowski, an aging slacker and ten-pin fanatic who just wants to go bowling (cue the movie's hilarious parrot-cry) but becomes unwittingly caught up in a complex abduction plot purely because he shares his surname with a mobster.

With some frighteningly weird stuff, ranging from lavish dream sequences to Moore naked on a trapeze, this is bizarre but brilliant Coen territory. There is terrific support from Goodman as Bridges' best bowling buddy, a sporadically violent Jewish convert who manages to get him into even deeper trouble with almost no effort whatsoever, Buscemi cast brilliantly against type as their silent friend Donny, and Turturro, whose lycra-suited bowling champ Jesus Quintana positively heists the few scenes in which he appears.

Secrets & Lies (1996)

superb comedy/drama

[31 August 2004]

Mike Leigh's superb comedy-drama of family relationships. Heart-rending, bitter and delightful by turn

Leigh's modern classic captured a brace of Oscar nominations but went home empty handed in the face of The English Patient's near clean sweep. Even Blethyn's Cannes-winning performance lost out to Frances McDormand's Fargo turn (hard to challenge this decision, although in any other year the brilliant Blethyn would have deserved to win). The film eventually racked up a considerable number of awards, its Oscar success aside.

The story, every bit as believable and real as the rest of Leigh's work, centres on a woman, Cynthia Purley (Blethyn ), whose mid-life crisis is further exacerbated by the appearance on the scene of the daughter she gave away at birth, the wonderfully named Hortense Cumberbatch (Baptiste) - a young, beautiful, professional black woman who causes a few eyebrows to be raised in the family, and forces Cynthia to come to terms with her past.

Alternating between high comedy, scathing one-liners (Blethyn telling daughter Rushbrook she has a face like a "slapped arse" is a moment to treasure) and tear-jerking poignancy, with Spall, Rushbrook and Baptiste all offering strong support, this is nothing short of superb.



Verdict A genuine hit for Mike Leigh, Secrets And Lies has the coarse grain of real life, sympathetically and affirmingly fashioned.

Fargo (1996)

Smart,stylish,frozen film noir from the Coen Brothers

[31 August 2004]

Just when the ultra-ironic, ultra-violent thriller seemed to have been done to death by Tarantino and his acolytes, along came the Coen brothers to breathe fresh life into the genre.

David Mamet-favourite Macy is wonderfully weak and wicked as Jerry Lundegaard the Swedish-American car-salesman whose attempts to mastermind the perfect crime - the kidnapping of his wife - go horribly, violently and hilariously wrong. For a start he has hired two trigger-happy crooks, the verbose Carl (Buscemi) and the taciturn Gaear (Stormare) to carry out the kidnapping. Pretty soon people are starting to get shot and this attracts the attention of the smart, pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson (McDormand, who deservedly won an Academy Award for her tough, funny, touching performance).

With its central plot strand of the well-planned crime spiralling wildly out of control, the film investigates similar territory to the Coen brothers' brilliant debut Blood Simple, but Fargo is a more assured work, lighter and more layered. The cast, boasting at least three scene-stealing performances (Macy, McDormand and Buscemi), are on top form. The film manages the neat trick of trumping Tarantino by not merely being filled with laughs and slickly handled, literally visceral action sequences, but also presenting rounded, recognizably human characters.

The English Patient (1996)

beautiful, but read the book too

[31 August 2004]

Beautifully shot adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's classic novel. Showered with Oscars and plaudits on its release

Oscars for Best Picture, director Minghella and actress Binoche were among the many laurels showered on this adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's 1992 book.

Romance blossoms between star-crossed lovers Count Laszlo de Almásy (Fiennes) and Katherine Clifton (Scott Thomas) in desert outposts during World War II, the couple's affair related in flashback by amnesiac, charred and dying Almásy to sympathetic nurse Hana (Binoche).

Although its setting (and aloof leading man) has drawn comparisons with epics such as Lawrence Of Arabia, the ebb and flow of memory and attention to interior landscape - both signatures of Minghella's work - transcend the forbidding landscape to create inner vistas arresting as desert blooms.

Casino (1995)

suberbly crafted

[31 August 2004]

Superbly crafted often sickeningly violent mafia must-see. Directed by Scorsese, starring De Niro, Pesci and Sharon Stone in a stand out performance

The true story of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (De Niro), a shrewd, Mafia-connected casino operator, whose assured, mannered existence is undone by his devotion to his flighty wife, Ginger and his boyhood friend Nicky (Pesci), a wild card who fancies his chances on Ace's patch.

De Niro and Pesci narrate the extended opening, detailing the mechanics of skimming money from the casino to pass onto the bosses back home. This sequence ends with the glorious introduction of Sharon Stone's showgirl hustler Ginger, all fur, jewels and blonde ambition, who casts gambling chips into the air. On a security monitor, De Niro watches her exuberant transgression, and falls in love. So begins his downfall, and the end of Mob rule in Vegas.

Where Goodfellas explored the allure of being a Brooklyn wise guy, with a hair-trigger comic sensibility, Casino emphasises the remorseless fear and grind of a mobster's life, all its attraction purged in two horrifically violent set-pieces. One, a torture scene with a vice, has been rightly condemned as gratuitous - but it is the closing beating that truly disturbs, two men brutally disfigured by repeated whacks with metallic bats that, as they are tipped into the grave, their featureless faces frozen in a contorted howl, it's almost as if a new species has emerged from the violence, only to be suddenly, cruelly, aborted. There is no romanticism in this view of the mafia.

Scorsese making a gangster film with Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro raised no eyebrows, and led some critics to accuse him of hitting a rut. All the same, with its ferocity and maturity, particularly in the responsibilities weighing upon the wise guys, Casino can be seen a closing chapter in the evolution of a gangster community, from its street heyday in Mean Streets to its adjustment to the new drug trade in Goodfellas to its final giving way to the power of the corporations in the Eighties.

Verdict The closing chapter in Scorsese's American Crime trilogy, Casino is superbly acted and quite astonishingly obsessive about detail, money, and the mob's decline.

Schindler's List (1993)

deserved oscars

[31 August 2004]

Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes star in Spielberg's award-winning Holocaust drama

Author Thomas Keneally won a Booker Prize for 'Schindler's Ark', but it took Spielberg to tell the story of shady Nazi industrialist Schindler who saved hundreds of Jews from the death camps to a worldwide audience.

It was very much a personal project for Spielberg. After the success of Jurassic Park he was able to make any film he wanted, and has said that he didn't expect many people would want to see a Jewish story. However, in Neeson's flawed hero Oskar Schindler, Kingsley's quietly desperate Jewish administrator Itzhak Stern and Fiennes's bloatedly evil concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth, Spielberg had a dramatic engine that pulls an audience along through the heartbreaking story of the enslavement and massacre of Poland's Jews.

It won buckets of Oscars, but its best tribute is the shocked, tearful silence of audiences everywhere. An outstanding, harrowing piece of cinema.



Verdict A heart-rending and redemptive Holocaust story, this Oscar-grabbing epic added to Spielberg's directorial credibility, showing he could handle controversial, sophisticated stories with real sensitivity.

Naked (1993)

Powerful, wearing, tough to stomach yet has to be seen

[31 August 2004]

One of the most powerful British films of the 90s. Mike Leigh directs David Thewlis in an unrelenting, uncompromisingly cynical portrayal of self-loathing and alienation

In this, Leigh's toughest, most uncompromising work for cinema, Thewlis turns in a stunningly uningratiating performance. He utterly immerses himself in the role of Johnny, an articulate, disenfranchised angry young man, who's escaped Manchester after a bit of rough outdoor sex turns into something a lot like rape.

Johnny flees to London to hook up with an old girlfriend Louise (Sharp). While wandering around the city he gives free rein to his unfocused rage and indulges in some further degrading sexual encounters, notably with the dippy and compliant Sophie (Cartlidge).

This is brilliant stuff, but hard to stomach. Once again Leigh proves what a big problem he has with London's bourgeoisie, particularly with his portrayal of the smooth, sexually exploitative Jeremy (Cruttwell).

Leigh gives us so little to cling to here. There is barely a symphathetic character aside from security guard Brian (Wright), who dreams of escaping to Ireland. So the viewer is stuck with the edgy autodidact Johnny. It's an immensely powerful film about self-loathing and urban alienation, but, Thewlis' remarkable performanace notwithstading, staying the two hour distance is asking for a lot, even from die-hard Leigh fans.

Jurassic Park (1993)

entertaining

[31 August 2004]

Steven Spielberg blazes the trail of investing movies with legions of CGI beasties in this breakthrough special effects movie. Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern visit the island theme-park of Richard Attenborough, who has been breeding dinosaurs

The astounding commercial success of Spielberg's theme-park movie proved once again the power of marketing and awesome special effects to overcome a thin story line and feeble characterisation. Another surprising aspect of the response was that the film seemed not to depend on a decent-sized cinema screen but proved effective when reduced to little brother telly. A definite tribute to the director's manipulative skill in dotting the overlong proceedings with enough shocks, scary moments and sentimentality to take up the slack.

Amid the special effects showcasing and chases, Jurassic Park exhibits the perennial concerns of Michael Crichton - who wrote the source novel. Said concern is man abusing scientific knowledge and playing God. The culprit here is Attenborough's John Hammond, an entrepreneur who has used dinosaur DNA taken from blood-sucking mosquitoes that have been preserved in amber to re-create the prehistoric dinosaurs, with the intention of opening the ultimate theme-park cum nature reserve. To prove that all is well with his proposed park, Hammond is forced to call in three 'experts': paleontologist Dr Alan Grant (Neill), his girlfriend paleo-botanist Dr Ellie Sattler (Dern), and chaos theoretician Dr Ian Malcolm (Goldblum). Oh, and sadly some kids are along for the ride too - they are the target audience after all, both for Hammond and for Spielberg.

After the initial splendour of viewing a brontosaurus chomping on a tree-top and the thrill of cuddling a sickly tricerotops, things inevitably go sour and the predators make their presence felt. T-Rex reestablishes his reign, this time as king of movie monsters (a kind of bipedal Jaws), while the smaller velociraptors prove their viciousness by hunting and chowing down on various cast members. Much of the film consists of being chased by dinosaurs and trying to survive. It's a simple formula, but crudely effective.

Attenborough is preposterously bad as Hammond, with an accent as wobbly as his scientific and moral judgement; the performance is only redeemed by his twinkly eyes. The rest of the cast are adequate, but hobbled by under-developed characters. Possibly the rather characterless leads work to the movie's advantage, since no one going to see a dazzling special effects movie needs distracting by a tame scientist's view of very untamed monsters. Not surprisingly, the sound and the computer-generated visuals received Oscars.

Goodfellas (1990)

contender for best gangster movie ever

[31 August 2004]

*WARNING* REVIEW CONTAINS ONE CASE OF BAD LANGUAGE *WARNING*

'As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster,' says Henry Hill, who opens his true story of 30 years in the mob in Scorsese's epic

There has never been an adequate explanation as to why this superb gangster epic didn't win 1990's Best Picture Academy Award. And why a film featuring 20 minutes of buffaloes stampeding and Kevin Costner with a 'tache (Dances With Wolves) was considered more worthy than one that featured Pesci's memorable 'How the f**k am I funny?' tirade is anyone's guess.

Glaring goofs by the Academy aside, GoodFellas is one of the best gangster movies ever. The tale of 30 years of life in the Mob, as seen through the eyes of real-life gangster Henry Hill (Liotta), was based on Nicolas Pileggi's gripping book (which he and Martin Scorsese adapted for the screen) and directed with skill by Scorsese.

There are so many things about this movie that are great - the casting of De Niro as Hill's mentor and Pesci (who won an Oscar) as the psychotic Tommy, that infamous tracking shot as Henry and his date (Bracco) walk into the Copacabana restaurant, the soundtrack featuring everything from Tony Bennett to The Who - it's no real surprise that the movie regularly appears on critics' Top Ten lists. Gripping, beautifully written, brilliantly directed, funny and tragic all in one - it certainly deserves to be right up there.

D.O.A. (1988)

flawed remake of excellent 1950s classic

[31 August 2004]

Fast-paced remake of the exclellent 1949 film-noir. With Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan on fine, romantic form

Quaid is the English professor who walks into a police station and reports a murder: his own. He has 24 hours to live after having been given poison, and is determined to use the remainder of his life to find his killer.

This film is fast-paced and littered with corpses and more red herrings than Brixton market, but the direction and script never gel. Despite a competent and charming performance by Quaid, paired with his real-life wife-to-briefly-be Ryan (a romance necessarily also conducted at top speed), D.O.A. is let down by a cop-out ending.

Blood Simple (1984)

amazing debut

[31 August 2004]

The Coen brothers' magnificent feature film debut

Scumbag private eye Walsh plans the perfect crime when he's hired by a Texan bar owner to kill his wife (McDormand) and her lover (Getz). But the ploy to fool his employer with mocked up photographic evidence goes spectacularly awry when his shortcut is discovered, and Walsh is forced to knock off the adulterous couple after all.

Jet-black, wickedly funny and driven by an ingenious plot, the film holds all the clues to the Coens' peerless future, including bizarre deaths, itching paranoia and Walsh's delicious performance of sweat-stained villainy.

Gandhi (1982)

epic yet flawed

[31 August 2004]

Epic but somewhat vague biopic of Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi from Richard Attenborough. Ben Kingsley gives a career best performance in the central role

For years this biopic of the great Indian statesman was director Attenborough's pet project and when he finally got the chance to make the film he pulled out all the stops in terms of cast and crew.

It's certainly visually stunning - the teeming beauty of India coming alive thanks to the cinematography of Williams and Taylor. Yet there's a feeling perhaps that Attenborough should have taken a few steps back from the material before commencing filming - as far too much is glossed over or left unexplained by the screenplay.

It's safe to say that if you knew nothing about Gandhi before going in to the movie, you wouldn't know a whole lot more coming out. The decision to cast British actor Kingsley as the lead role was a controversial one. Admittedly, he is absolutely superb, his performance more than making up for the movie's other deficiencies.