montysmith-slp Reviews

Revolution (2009 TV Movie)

The Revolution will be televised...

[17 January 2010]

Stargate survivor Richard Zeman, Rocketeer man Billy Campbell and Supernova veteran Peter Fonda among the citizens of New America, an outer-space colony with independence issues. Directed by Michael Rymer, who's overseen many Battlestar Galactica episodes, it has pilot show written all over it. But it never grasps its big themes in the way of Ian McShane's bizarre TV series Kings. It's pitched much more like a TV soap. The colonised planet, a weird mixture of cornfields and space shuttles, looks remarkably like Earth. And so the new frontier looks just like a New Age version of the Old West… which all helps on the Sci Fi Channel's budget front.

Virtual Nightmare (2000 TV Movie)

Matrix Underfunded

[7/10 · 1 November 2007]

The idyllic existence of Fairview advertising executive Michael Muhney is upset by bad dreams and disturbing visions. He's unknowingly experiencing a reality-check in a bracing post-apocalyptic Matrix riff from Australia (which explains the unfamiliar cast). A faceless corporation called Arora has wallpapered-over the real world with pacifying signals sent direct to the brain: this is a world where you can buy a new car every day at 1950s prices and your unflaggingly cheerful parents talk in reassuring platitudes, a place where Kurt Cobain sings children's songs and Marilyn Monroe makes movies with Leonardo DiCaprio. Mixing paint-box colours with grimy black-and-white, director Michael Pattinson conjures up a delusional universe that repels and attracts in equal measure. This curious picture lifts good ideas from impeccable sources: the too-perfect nostalgic small-town setting of Pleasantville, the sealed perimeters of The Thirteenth Floor, the out-of-wack office of The Truman Show, the on-screen catalogue tags of Fight Club, the paintings of Rene Magritte. Even though it's consistently engaging, like so many Outer Limits-style tales, the more it's explained, the less interesting it becomes. This could be because the dialogue sounds as though it's been lifted wholesale from comic-book speech-bubbles. Even so, the conflicting ideas gnaw: Socrates' assertion that the unexamined life is not worth living is all very well, but would we want to know the truth if the truth is unbearable?

Virtual Sexuality (1999)

Sex Please - We're Stupid!

[1/10 · 1 November 2007]

Laura Fraser creates her ideal man on a virtual reality machine and he's suddenly brought to life, of course. Oh what jolly japes don't ensue in a Britcom flop so Day-Glo bright yet so dismal it manages to make the execrable 1980s American teen flick Weird Science look almost decent. The sex-obsessed script is by The Sun film critic Nick Fisher, a former teeny-mag 'agony uncle' who's obviously never watched an episode of Smack The Pony in his life; shame, because then he might at least have been in with a shout of writing female characters that were recognisably members of the human race. This knicker-twisting lot have all too clearly emerged from the virtual brain of someone who imagines they're amusing. Suddenly, the thought of new-wave Iranian cinema is somehow attractive.

Maneater (2007 TV Movie)

Big cat thrills from Winnipeg

[5/10 · 11 July 2007]

An escaped Bengal tiger is loose in a backwoods rural community (Selkirk, Winnipeg posing as Taruga County, USA). Local sheriff Gary Busey's more usual small town duties involve permits for frontlawn quilt sales. And the odd missing persons case. The latest is a jogger reported missing in the woods. The tracker dog is spooked, with good reason. There's body parts in them thar hills. And this cat's so efficient at making people disappear it could get a gig in Las Vegas. "Ma! I think there's a lion out here!" says brave little Ty Wood, hearing a growl in the dark. "None of your make believe," says Ma, telling him to get on with his Bible studies. Busey thinks it's maybe a bear. The mayor's more concerned about the annual corn and apple festival. Thank goodness for big-game hunter Ian D. Clark: "For the inexperienced, stalking a maneating tiger is an exotic form of suicide." The hunters are the hunted in a neatly scripted, straight-forward big-cat adventure that earns points for staying away from fake CGI tricks. This cat's for real. And he's not voting for the mayor.

Widow on the Hill (2005 TV Movie)

Murder or mercy-killing in Monroeville mansion?

[4/10 · 7 November 2005]

Stunning blonde Natasha Henstridge is the young, not-so-grieving widow in the mansion on the hill, telling her story to a TV reporter in Monroeville, Virginia. And among the community's well-heeled horsey-set, she's suspected of involvement in the death of her older husband. That's James Brolin, trusting as a babe-in-arms. Flashback teledrama made in Canada, based on an article that appeared in Vanity Fair magazine. It must be true! Whatever, it's far more romance than mystery, and a very familiar tale. Leggy Species star Henstridge as a gold-digging hospice nurse? It could happen, I guess. And it's good to see Brolin in a sizeable role after his titchy turn in Antwone Fisher, even if he doesn't make it to the end of the picture. The end of the picture? He doesn't even make it to the beginning of the picture. Which is why flashbacks were invented, of course.

Million Dollar Murder (2005 TV Movie)

Incredible story of greed and spite - it must be true

[5/10 · 7 November 2005]

Ambitious Manhattan estate agent Poppy Montgomery hooks Wall Street hotshot David Sutcliffe and is soon manipulating his every move. An outburst in the street should have tipped him off about her red-mist rages but, hey, love is blind. Soon ensconced in his East Hampton holiday home with adopted trophy twins (one of each), Poppy displays traits that are touchy to the point of looney-tunes. A poisonous story of greed and insanely spiteful behaviour which leads to unbelievable resolutions – of course it's true! Poppy is Without A Trace's sweet Sam Spade – here, she's a paranoid narcissist who could be fairly described as a deplorable human being and a despicable mother. Actors kill for this kind of role. And Ms Montgomery is nothing if not determined - like her Without A Trace co-star Anthony LaPaglia, she's Australian, not American. She arrived in California aged 18 carrying a book called How To Make It In Hollywood. By the way, this Canadian-made movie plays on TV in south-east Asia and in the UK as Million Dollar Murder.

Titanic (1997)

Definition of hubris: "King of the world!"

[4/10 · 7 November 2005]

The sinking of the Titanic is an enduring story of 20th-century man's arrogance in an age of speed and comfort. The maiden voyage of the world's largest, most luxurious ship had a grim date with destiny on the night of April 14th 1912. There have been many more catastrophic disasters since but few with the haunting resonance of the Titanic's tragic fate. For complex social and political reasons, the story of the Titanic is a shared experience of human folly and heroism. James Cameron's hyped up extravaganza chooses to ignore the significance of the event, opting simply to tell a trite love story that ends in the water. It is in no way a fitting memorial to the 1537 souls lost at sea in the early hours of April 15th. Worse, it is a travesty. The American ship Californian was less than 10 miles away yet ignored the Titanic's distress flares. This integral component in the unfolding disaster is not merely skimped by Cameron, it is totally ignored. Why? By focusing solely on the insipid Romeo and Juliet romance between Leonardi DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, Cameron diminishes the tragedy's devastating scale. "Size matters," claims Cameron, missing the point – he merely replicates the hubris of Edwardian thinking on the 'unsinkable' ship. His sense of size relates only to his huge sets and the amount of screen time allotted to his twittering lovebirds. Cameron has made a Titanic for the dumbed-down MTV generation. His bloated romance lacks the humility and simple grace of the moving British film on the same subject, A Night To Remember. Titanic is more like another 1958 film, An Affair To Remember – soggy, ponderous and clichéd to the core: the steerage passengers are salt-of-the-earth types happily dancing drunkenly to Irish reels; the aristocrats are pompous, stuffed-shirt repressives; the crew is a collection of doughty Brit caricatures. Even so, most of them are more interesting than the limpid lovers sketched by DiCaprio and Winslet. He quotes Bob Dylan lyrics. She flips the finger to David Warner. In 1912. But the film's failure as drama rests not with them. The director falters from the outset, airlifting an improbably sprightly 102-year-old survivor on to an Atlantic salvage ship. And history isn't big enough for Cameron – in a laughably melodramatic lapse he has Billy Zane chasing the loving couple through the flooding ship, firing off shots. As for the heralded special effects, they are not always convincing and, in one awful crane shot swooping from bow to stern, clearly the work of computer imagery. James Cameron, the writer-director behind such soulless Hollywood product as Terminator 2 and True Lies, was never going to be the right man to tell the great story of the Titanic.

Notting Hill (1999)

Frothy fairy tale romance

[7/10 · 7 November 2005]

Impecunious London bookstore owner Hugh Grant lost for words when incognito film star Julia Roberts pops into his shop for a browse. This is the movies, so – despite the chasm between them – they fall in love. It's a path fraught with obstacles and misunderstandings, most of them comic. Richard Curtis' canny follow up to Four Weddings is in no way a sequel though it is very similar – a sentimental fairy-tale romance that's all froth and no body. Nonetheless, it's diverting entertainment and the sheer class of the stars seems to lend it substance, certainly as the story unfolds (which is basically Roman Holiday for the 1990s, with better jokes and a happier ending). Grant's patented stuttering diffidence is thrown into sharp relief by Roberts' easy radiance. She's already proved a dab hand at self-effacing comedy and she brings a scary conviction to her tantrum scenes here. Grant's gaggle of friends are a less impressive bunch, though Rhys Ifans has fun as his disgusting flatmate Spike.

Province 77 (2002)

Kick-boxing dishwasher saves Thai restaurant in L.A.

[4/10 · 4 November 2005]

A doubtless sincere attempt to portray the social and cultural difficulties facing hard-working Thais trying to make a living for themselves in the New World: Los Angeles, that is – South Central by the looks of it. So their family restaurant is infected by local lowlifes. And few slouch lower than Jeremy Thana's knuckle-scraping bling-bling gang-banger Goldie. To help out the family business' tax problems, Mike Kingpayom makes the mistake of getting involved with Goldie's drug-dealing schemes. Fortunately, head-down Pete Thongchua is the restaurant dishwasher – you know, like Steven Seagal saying "I'm just the cook" in Under Siege. The bilingual script (by Martin S. Gonzalez) comically overdoses on Anglo-Saxon expletives for the American characters. Director Smith Timsawat provided the story and edited the movie, so the buck presumably stops with him. It's a simplistic little B-picture, attractively shot and apparently seduced by the decadent lifestyle it tries to decry. "Across the world we exist," proclaims an end-title, signalling a seriousness of intent that's belied by the sporadic action.