With: Robert Downey Jr, Jamie Foxx, Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander
Plot: LA Times writer Steve Lopez (Downey Jr) is struggling for interesting column ideas when he happens across Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) a homeless probable schizophrenic with a talent for playing the violin and cello.
---
This seems to think that all that's needed to be moving is for worthy things to be placed on the screen and fawned over by the actors. Mental illness! The transcendent power of music! It's watchable, but very tedious and Wright's attempts to visualise the beauty of music with screen-saver style flashing colours and extreme close ups of bows across strings are a bit embarassing really. He's an aesthetically restless director, always looking for creative ways to needlessly swoop around the environment and like his 'LOOK-AT-THIS!' tracking shot in Atonement's Dunkirk scene, such techniques don't add anything to what is intended to be a sombre story. Otherwise, everything is just going through the motions, with a typically romantic view of mental illness (it's implied that medicating Nathaniel would almost be akin to neutering him, or dimming his idiot savant magic) and some of the most pointless childhood flashbacks ever imagined (how did the crazy music lover come to be how he was? Well he loved music when he was younger, and one day went crazy. The end). It's mostly restrained enough, and the cast try their best, though Foxx has that overly intense sincerity, like Tom Cruise, which seems to cry out 'I'm really acting now!'. The one interesting scene is where Lopez's drunk wife (Keener) calls him on his supposedly altruistic exploitation of Nathaniel, but that's a much too complex notion to explore in such a cut and dry 'inspirational piece', so it's no surprise to see it quietly dismissed.
43
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Orca - Killer Whale (Michael Anderson, 1977)
With: Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Bo Derek, Will Sampson, Robert Carradine
Plot: When a fisherman (Harris), accidentally kills a pregnant killer whale, its mate stalks after the guilty crew, apparrently overcome with desire for vengeance.
---
For the most part this fits the bill of 'mildly diverting Jaws rip-off', but it's strangely interesting in places. The opening whale death is particularly drawn out and harrowing (If it were a human it would be worse than Hostel), and the repeated insistence (from marine biologist Rampling) that the Orca husband is on a killing spree of passion and revenge, while ridiculous, does eventually get under your skin, with all the sad close-ups of whale eyes, and scenes of Harris' mental state in tatters, you certainly don't need to get to the ending to know whose side the filmmakers are on. This stuff is more interesting to think about than to watch though, and eventually the film sinks to pure macho-mysticism as we are to believe the whale and Harris are having some cross-species war of gentleman. Despite some silly bits (Orca manages to drag an entire house into the sea and later confusingly manages to explode a whole village), the action material is solid, with some amazing whale footage and a surprising taste for dismemberment. They should get Renny Harlin to remake it. Seriously!
52
Plot: When a fisherman (Harris), accidentally kills a pregnant killer whale, its mate stalks after the guilty crew, apparrently overcome with desire for vengeance.
---
For the most part this fits the bill of 'mildly diverting Jaws rip-off', but it's strangely interesting in places. The opening whale death is particularly drawn out and harrowing (If it were a human it would be worse than Hostel), and the repeated insistence (from marine biologist Rampling) that the Orca husband is on a killing spree of passion and revenge, while ridiculous, does eventually get under your skin, with all the sad close-ups of whale eyes, and scenes of Harris' mental state in tatters, you certainly don't need to get to the ending to know whose side the filmmakers are on. This stuff is more interesting to think about than to watch though, and eventually the film sinks to pure macho-mysticism as we are to believe the whale and Harris are having some cross-species war of gentleman. Despite some silly bits (Orca manages to drag an entire house into the sea and later confusingly manages to explode a whole village), the action material is solid, with some amazing whale footage and a surprising taste for dismemberment. They should get Renny Harlin to remake it. Seriously!
52
The Temp (Tom Holland, 1993)
WITH: Timothy Hutton, Lara Flynn Boyle, Faye Dunaway, Oliver Platt, Steven Weber
PLOT: Advertising exec Hutton gets a hard-working, sexy temp (Boyle) to help him vie for an important promotion, unfortunately she turns out to be Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
---
Not actually as vulgar and stupid as you'd expect a bottom of the barrel 'bitch from hell' thriller to be, which is a shame as what you'd imagine is much more enjoyable than this slightly embarassed thing. It dutifully lays out the most tedious, obvious thriller structure you can imagine, then lays there dead as ridiculous plot twists and holes pile on to no effect. The film's body count is bizarrely high, Boyle offing company men every few minutes, and no-one even gets suspicious until they think a company recipe has been leaked! The bitch from hell herself is played by Boyle as a vacuously pouty, ambitious enigma, and in tandem with the thoughtless plotting provides her no real moments of evil (We don't really see her doing anything bad or sexy, it's just implied that she does). Maybe worth watching for some funny details, such as how lazily telegraphed some deaths are ("Agh, a bee, get it away I'm fatally allergic!!"). Probably not though.
35
PLOT: Advertising exec Hutton gets a hard-working, sexy temp (Boyle) to help him vie for an important promotion, unfortunately she turns out to be Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
---
Not actually as vulgar and stupid as you'd expect a bottom of the barrel 'bitch from hell' thriller to be, which is a shame as what you'd imagine is much more enjoyable than this slightly embarassed thing. It dutifully lays out the most tedious, obvious thriller structure you can imagine, then lays there dead as ridiculous plot twists and holes pile on to no effect. The film's body count is bizarrely high, Boyle offing company men every few minutes, and no-one even gets suspicious until they think a company recipe has been leaked! The bitch from hell herself is played by Boyle as a vacuously pouty, ambitious enigma, and in tandem with the thoughtless plotting provides her no real moments of evil (We don't really see her doing anything bad or sexy, it's just implied that she does). Maybe worth watching for some funny details, such as how lazily telegraphed some deaths are ("Agh, a bee, get it away I'm fatally allergic!!"). Probably not though.
35
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)