Matt's Arts

Jindabyne

2006-07-19T14:35:00.000+10:00

I saw this film as part of a Popcorn Taxi Q & A screening, with the usual collection of (largely Caucasian) people that show up to these sorts of movie Q & As. It's hard to explain if you've never been to one, but there are basically various different styles of thick black-rimmed spectacles, unusual haircuts, black skivvies, and (if you're really lucky) berets. There were no berets in sight last night, but I'm sure I saw everything else.

It's quite funny. The daggiest person I spotted was Andrew Lesnie (the cinematographer from Lord of the Rings and King Kong - watch your extra features on the DVD if you want to know what he looks like). He looked like he'd just come off location shooting on the South Island. And the director of Jindabyne himself, Ray Lawrence, when he came out for the Q & A at the end of the film was sitting there talking with David Stratton (wearing a suit) and Ray was kind of hidden in a huge parka.

Actually, I think he was a bit nervous about the whole thing, because he kept drinking from a thermos of calming tea (well, that's what he told us it was) and took a fair amount of time to come out with an answer to any questions he was asked. And even when he did come up with an answer, it could sometimes take him five minutes to slowly and hesitantly answer the question. That is, if he even answered your particular question, and didn't talk about something else instead.

Now, on to the film. Jindabyne is about four men who go fishing for a long weekend. The first day, when they arrive at their remote creek, they find the body of a dead Aboriginal girl in the water. It's too late to do anything that night, so they tie her up and leave her in the water.
However, the next day, when they wake up, rather than go and get help, they decide to go fishing instead. So they fish all day, and it's not until the next day that they leave.

Which is when all hell breaks loose. The town thinks they're disgraceful for being so callous, their wives/girlfriends are shocked, and the local Aboriginal community thinks they're racist. So for the rest of the film, all manner of issues are touched on - racial relations, respect for the dead, marital relationships, post-natal depression, forgiveness, making up for other people's mistakes. You name it. It's all there.

All of this is fantastically well-acted, especially the two non-Australia leads, Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney (thus leaving us with the rather multi-cultural scenario of an Irish man and his American wife living in a small Australian town).

The only problem which I found with the whole thing is the rather low-key ending, which still left a few plot points unresolved. Maybe I'm probably too used to American films, which usually wrap everything up nicely. But all I know is, if it was me that did what these guys did, I'd have to sit down and do some serious talking about it to sort everything out. But there is no great "sorting out". The resolution of some of the plot points is worked out in a low-key way that felt a bit unsatisfying.

But, maybe when I'm as old as Ray Lawrence, I might find that there are some things in life that don't resolve themselves neatly. Evil does exist in this world, often unpunished. Men and women carry past hurts around with them, and they don't heal. Apologies can be offered, but not necessarily accepted. On that basis, 4 out of 5.

When a Man Loves a Woman

2006-06-12T19:15:00.000+10:00

For the long weekend, Rach and I decided to hire out some movies. One of her picks was When A Man Loves A Woman. Now there is an exercise in clever marketing - a film that kind of looks like something else but turns out to be quite different.

If you have a look at the front cover, it looks like a soppy romance. The kind of film that no self-respecting guy would go see. (I mean, let's face it - we know it's going to have the song in there, and who wants to sit through that?) So, obviously, the goal is to attract chicks. So thus a front cover that makes it look like a romance, a back cover that talks about a man and his wife and how they're going through some problems, but how the power of love conquers all (or some such sentiment).

Then there's the movie, which is somewhat different: Andy Garcia is married to Meg Ryan, who very quickly shows us that she is an alcoholic. So the first hour of the film is all about her problem and how she gets sent away to detox.

That's a bit more intense than anybody was expecting - but that's okay, there's only chicks there and they've all got the tissues out. Then we head into the excruciatingly slow second hour. She's back - she's off the alcohol - and all of a sudden, he can't cope.

The film finally ends at about the 120 minute mark. Again, it's one of those American dramas that handles its subject in an above average manner, with above average acting from its leads, but never seems to rise to the level of outstanding. So 3 out of 5, and I'm possibly being generous.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

2006-06-11T07:23:00.000+10:00

I remember when this came out in the 80s (well, actually, I don't specifically remember when it came out) - but I remember in the 80s that this film was frowned on in Christian circles, and I doubt it was looked on fondly by schoolteachers or parents of teenagers.

This movie (which I doubt I have to tell you much about), tells the story of young Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), who fakes being sick so that he can have a day off. He engineers to get his girlfriend, Sloane, out of school and his best friend, Cameron (who was home sick anyway because he hates life). The three of them steal Cameron's Dad's car, and then head off for a memorable day in Chicago.

Complications arise because Ed Rooney, the dean of students at Ferris' school (played by the ever-amusing cafedave lookalike, Jeffrey Jones), realises that he's being scammed and decides to take matters into his own hands. His attempts to catch Ferris out go from bad to worse.

Also in the mix is Ferris' sister Joan (played by Dirty Dancing's Jennifer Grey), who is just annoyed that her brother can get away with everything and she can't. So she also is out to blow the whistle.

I think there's a degree to which if you are a parent of teenagers, you might want to caution your children about not following everything they see on movies . . . but I think the fact that this film is still so immensely popular years later, tells us that it is about a little more than just delinquent students.

Without doubt, the reason for this film's success, is that it points the finger (in perhaps a rather subtle way) at the sheer boredom of a life lived without purpose. Whether it be the empty business dealings that Ferris' Mum and Dad engage in, the mind-numbing pointlessness of the classes that Ferris is skipping, or the references to college that everyone is expected to go to but no one really wants to - the point is clear: we do a lot of things in life that really don't have much meaning.

Now, the film's solution to this is that we should all take a day off now and again and enjoy life. So, as a result, some of the most memorable scenes are ones where Ferris gets an entire crowd of people dancing during a parade, or the lovingly photographed artworks in the art gallery. Then there is the evocation of friendships, and how important they are. "These are the important things," this film says.

Obviously, I'm going to come from a slightly different point of view, and suggest that meaning is found in obeying God's will, and getting in step with His plan for the world. But if we leave God out of the picture, and try to find a meaning in work or school just for its own sake, I'm inclined to agree that life would soon become as pointless as this film presents it. 3 1/2 out of 5.

Poseidon

2006-06-05T21:32:00.000+10:00

Not as morally offensive. Actually, it's hard to go wrong with a film that delivers exactly what it promises, no more, no less. You can make up your mind straight away whether you want to see it or not.

A luxury liner turns upside down when it gets hit by a freak wave. A group of people try to make their way from the top of the boat to the bottom (which is now the top . . . get it?).

Along the way, some of them aren't going to make it. If I tell you that there's no more than 10 minutes of set up, and the film ends as soon as they get rescued, then you know that there's not really going to be any in-depth characters. If I tell you that it goes for 1 hr 38 mins, then you just KNOW it's going to be non-stop action action action.

It's very good non-stop action because Wolfgang Petersen knows his water movies (think Das Boot and A Perfect Storm), but that's all there is to it. 3 1/2 out of 5.

The Da Vinci Code

2006-06-05T21:24:00.000+10:00

While I'm posting on the main site, I might as well update this page as well.

There's not too much to say about The Da Vinci Code. It's turning out to be the kind of film where I don't know any non-Christians who've seen it, but lots of Christians I know are looking at it to find out how bad it is.

How bad is it? Ignoring that it's fairly B-grade as far as movies go:

1) It does have the dud "Jesus got married" theory that the book had. It comes off a little more ludicrous in this book, because the music and flashbacks make it sound more like the prologue off Fellowship of the Ring than a serious historical reality.

2) However, it does have an even more ridiculous ending where Tom Hanks says, in effect, that what's important is what you believe. In other words, it doesn't really matter whether Jesus Christ is really God - only whether you believe He is.

What rubbish thinking . . . 2,000 years of Christians getting killed, fed to lions, picked on in the press, laughed at by other people . . . and all of this based on an idea that doesn't matter if it's true?!?! My goodness . . . 2 out of 5, only because I liked the visual style and soundtrack.

7 Up

2005-10-27T14:24:00.000+10:00

This is a fascinating little half-hour documentary from 1964. Fourteen 7-year-olds from various backgrounds in England are interviewed and asked what they think about life. There are boys from upper-crust schools in London, three girls from the East End, a couple of boys from an orphanage, a boy who goes to a one-room school in the country and lives on a farm, etc.

This film would probably have been a novel but easily forgettable idea if it wasn't for the fact that Michael Apted, an assistant on the first film, has come back every seven years since then and interviewed the kids as they've grown up.

Right from the start, you can see that the aim was to show the difference in opportunities and goals that you get between rich and poor. (E.g. The rich kids all know exactly which school they are going to next, all the way through to university. Some of the poor kids don't even know what university is and don't know what they want to do with their life.)

But will their personality at age 7 be their defining factor for the rest of their life? I'll keep you posted.

Life is Beautiful

2005-10-06T17:46:00.000+10:00

If you've never seen it, this was probably one of the greatest foreign films to come out in the 90s. It tells the story of Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni), a Jewish waiter, and his experiences in Italy pre and during WWII. At first, the film starts out remarkably light, as we see Benigni madly trying to woo Dora, a beautiful schoolteacher that he keeps running into around Rome.

The first half of the film is like watching a mad slapstick comedy, and only gradually does the film hint where it's going . . . in the film's second half as Guido, Dora and their son Joshua are sent off to a concentration camp, Guido's joking takes on a more serious turn as he tries to protect his young son from the evil that is going on around him. By convincing young Joshua that it is all an elaborate game (with a real tank as a prize), he guides his son through the dark days.

Now, obviously, the whole film is stylised and the Holocaust was a lot worse than this film makes out. However, we already know that. You don't need dozens of graphic images to make that point. This film hints in subtle places at the underlying horror, but doesn't show too much, thus making it quite watchable by most audiences.

However, it is a deeply moving (and also uplifting film), and I defy anybody who sees it not to be able to both laugh and cry as they watch it. Truly brilliant stuff. 5 out of 5.

Newsfront

2005-10-05T16:00:00.000+10:00

This was one of the early films from Philip Noyce, who went on to direct such things as The Bone Collector, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Clear and Present Danger, etc. It's an Australian film from 1978 that tells the story of the newsreel cameramen, who journeyed all around Australia to film the news.

Where the film is great is all the old newsreel footage that you get to see, as well as the period detail. It's hard to imagine a time where there were special cinemas set up just so people could go watch the news together. Can you imagine it? It would have been a really communal thing to watch the news together.

However, as television appeared, the newsreels were less and less popular, until eventually they died out.

Where I wasn't so keen on the film was the characters. They're very true to life characters (in other words, flawed), but they're not really the kind of characters that I can sympathise with. So overall, 3 1/2 out of 5.

The Shining

2005-10-04T15:43:00.000+10:00

After seeing the hilarious trailer that cafedave showed to me of this film, where is was portrayed as being a feel-good movie, I got really keen to see the original.

I should read the book one of these days, but in the meantime, I have now seen the Stanley Kubrick version (the one I just saw recently) and a couple of years ago, I saw the 4 1/2 hour TV version. So I might as well review both at once.

THE TV VERSION:

Both stories are based on Stephen King's novel about a writer, Jack Torrance, who goes to live at a hotel in the mountains with his wife and young son. All he has to do is general maintenance around the hotel, and for that, he gets plenty of spare time to write his novel.

His young son, Danny, has "the shining" which allows him to see dead people. Of course, the place is crawling with ghosts. So Danny sees them all, and his father just plain goes nuts. The poor mother is stuck in the middle with it all.

The best thing about the TV version is that it takes its time developing characters. So we see that Jack is an ex-alcoholic, and he's struggling to get his life back together. He's a guy you want to see succeed, so when the dark forces of the hotel start getting to him, it becomes quite tragic. Also, the ending is quite redemptive (I wouldn't go so far as to call if upbeat, but it's definitely redemptive.)

THE MOVIE:

The Kubrick version, by contrast, has no real back story. Jack Nicholson, to be quite frank, looks like he was already a psychopath before he got to the hotel, and so there's not much of a change in him. He just starts going more nuts as the story progresses. Also the ending doesn't have any redemption at all.

What IS amazing about this version, especially if you can see it on a projector or a big screen, like I did, is the camerawork. The camera smoothly follows along behind the characters, often positioned at natural eyeheight. The overall effect is that you feel very much IN the hotel. As the camera moves around, you feel like you're walking around as well. The location becomes amazingly atmospheric.

However, that aside, the two stories are both fairly similar. In both cases, the scariest moment (for me, anyway) is the whole Room 237 thing. After that moment, everything else becomes quite mild by comparison.

4 out of 5 for both.

Ticket to Heaven

2005-10-01T16:58:00.000+10:00

Watched this one on DVD which was off-loaded on to me by my uncle. It was one of those crappy DVDs that sells for $5 on cheap stalls. However, despite the bad transfer, it was actually quite an interesting film.

It was a Candian movie (made for TV, I understand) from the early 80s about a guy who gets sucked into a cult which, while it is never specifically given the name, is based very heavily on the Moonies.

I was curious afterwards to see how true to life this was, and from some quick research and other things I remember reading, it was absolutely spot on about the brainwashing the Moonies used to do. If you were remotely curious about this cult, and didn't want to read a book, I'd recommend this DVD.

The main drawback to the whole production was the music, which was typical 80s television music and has dated terribly. That aside, the whole production was quite strong. 4 out of 5.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2005-09-26T14:43:00.000+10:00

I know some people say it's rather different from the old 70s Gene Wilder film, but for me it feels like remarkably familiar territory . . .

The big difference is Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. The problem is that nobody's sure what effect Depp is trying to give. Is he trying to be Michael Jackson? (Seems a little bit too scared of kids to do that.)

Is he trying to be weird because it's funny? Well, it's not. It's just plain creepy.

That aside, the production values are excellent and the opening build-up to going inside the factory (the highlight of both films for me) was well done. I'll give this a 3 1/2 out of 5.

Memento

2005-08-15T23:12:00.000+10:00

The funny thing I'm noticing about films nowadays is that the more clever the filmmaker, often the more immoral his film is (especially true for Sin City, which I will review next).

Memento is by Chris Nolan (in fact, it was the film that shot him to fame, and allowed him to move on to such things as Insomnia and, of course, Batman Begins). For those who don't know, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) has a condition where he has no short-term memory. So he can't make any new memories.

All he can do is take photos of things and write notes for himself. The only thing he can remember is that he his condition was caused by an injury when he wife was raped and killed. Now his whole life is dedicated to tracking down the killer. He guides himself towards the right person by keeping important clues to the killer's identity tattooed on his body.

The movie is shot in a disorienting style, with colour sections going backwards in time and black and white sections going forwards in time. It is undeniably brilliant, but there's nothing ultimately redeeming about this film. I've now worked out that for a film to get a 5 from me, it usually has to hit more than just my mind. Alas, this film only hit the mind. 4 out of 5.

Gettysburg

2005-07-30T07:53:00.000+10:00

This film takes a very special place in the hall of fame because it was the movie that got me into movies. I can clearly mark a distinction between my life before I saw this movie in 1994 and afterwards. Before, I'd watch the occasional movie, usually a latest blockbuster of some description, and not think much of it.

But Gettysburg moved me beyond anything I'd ever seen before, and made me hunger after more films of this power and grandeur. To be honest, in the last decade since then, films that can match up to it have been few and far between.

So what makes this film so great? To me, it's the overwhelming sense of sadness that hangs over it. Running at 4 hours 20 minutes, it covers the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg, and during that time, we see everything. We meet all the famous commanders there at that battle, both South and North, and find out all kinds of details about their lives and backgrounds.

For the first day of fighting, we still don't know too much about who's who, and it seems like a regular war film. Cannons going off, people getting shot. The usual thing we expect to see in a war film.

In the second day, the film focuses on a particular battle where one small Union regiment led by a college professor, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (played in brilliant role by Jeff Daniels) has been given orders to hold the end of the northern line on a small hill. However, it is on that end of the line that the Confederates pour all their men, and we watch a relentless half hour battle among the trees.

But the film has just been warming up.

It's the second half of the film, and the third day of the battle that Gettysburg really hits home.

*Here follow spoilers, but none that couldn't be ruined by reading a history book, so I wouldn't worry about it.*

During the previous two days, there have been growing disagreements between General Robert E Lee, commander of the Confederate forces (yet another brilliant performance from Martin Sheen) and his second-in-command James Longstreet (Tom Berenger with, unfortunately, the most artificial beard in the film.) Longstreet is cautious, prefers defensive warfare and wants to pull back and retreat.

Lee has never retreated in his life, and even though this battle is turning against him, he decides to send a large group of 15,000 men marching straight across an open field towards the Northerners.

From various scenes and conversations, it quickly becomes apparent that there is no chance of success. It's practically a suicide mission.

And so we move into the film's ultimate set piece: the amazing Pickett's Charge. This whole scene lasts over 45 minutes, and it is the massacre that is predicted. But what makes it so memorable (and what hit me over the head so many years ago), was that the Southerners bravely walked into it, knowing what the consequences would be. They had no qualms at all about marching, even though they had wives at home, friends on the other side.

There's many, many more scenes that I could talk about for hours, but I've got to stop somewhere. But a special mention should be made of the magnificent Randy Edelman soundtrack to Gettysburg. The CD is the pride of place for many a soundtrack collector (I actually know one friend who played a track of it for background music when he was proposing to his girlfriend.). And with good reason. The sheer emotion and power of the score I'm sure lift the film twice as high as it would be otherwise.

This is 5 out of 5 and, for once, I'd give it a higher score if I could.

Gods and Generals

2005-07-23T20:13:00.000+10:00

This movie was wade in 2003 as a prequel to 1993's Gettysburg (which I shall review shortly). The original film Gettysburg was based on the 70s American Civil War novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara who died before he ever saw the film. His son, Jeff, took up his father's story and wrote Gods and Generals, a prequel starting at the beginning of the American Civil War and ending just before the battle of Gettysburg, which is of course covered by his father. He then also wrote a novel called The Last Full Measure which covers the war from after Gettysburg to the end of the war.

However, it seems unlikely that a film of The Last Full Measure will be made any time soon. Gods and Generals was not only a box office disaster (returning only about 11 million of its 65 million budget), but a critical disaster as well. This film was destroyed by critics and audiences (check out www.rottentomatoes.com for the critics and www.imdb.com for the audiences). They hated it.

The film was pro-Confederate (the South). It had too many long speeches. The action films weren't gory enough to be realistic. It showed black slaves who happily served the Confederates.
As an Australian, I have a slightly less emotional link to the War, so I'm perhaps not so easily offended. However, from what I do understand of the conflict, this movie is accurate in what it does show of the war.

And this is where it made its fatal mistake. By showing more scenes of the South than of the north, and not showing any scenes at all of the brutality of the South's infamous slavery, what I believe started as an intention to show the side of the South that nobody talks about unfortunately came off looking like a view of the south where they could do no wrong.

Now with that caveat aside, what are we left with? We're left with a film that, if it had been a box office success, would have failed in what it attempts to do: get inside the head of the men living at the time.

Where Gods and Generals works brilliantly is that it takes us inside the mind of the characters at the time. What were they thinking about? What were the issues to them? (Which is, of course, why slavery is not covered so much - while the North may have been fighting to free slaves, I don't believe this was at all the primary concern with the South.)

What you end up with is a story where State's rights are important. The centrality of the government versus the independence of the state. Who would you be more loyal to, if you were called to choose? The country as a whole or your own state? The Confederates clung to their states, and that's why they kept fighting for five years.

Another major criticism of the film was the film's long-windedness and praying. Now, I'm not sure exactly whether the characters in real life spoke like this, but they certainly wrote this way. This film can happily jump from conversations to real historical letters of the characters and there is no noticeable difference, because the dialogue sounds uniformly the same.

Now, maybe it is clunky (but if you could handle the dialogue on Lord of the Rings, this is not going to be terribly hard on the ears), but what it does, more than any other war film ever did, is explore the issues that these guys are wrestling with. They are political. Ethical. Religious. All of this is covered.

Complaints may also be raised that nobody seems to be a bad guy in this film.

And this is the precise point, and why I think that these films are a breath of fresh air in the film world. War is not an action film. It is very rarely a simple good guys/bad guys case. It is, however, always a tragic event. By making us care about characters on both sides of the war, Gods and Generals ultimately gets us beyond good guys/bad guys, and gets us reflecting on the tragedy of war.

One of the most memorable scenes in the film to me is a scene where the Battle of Fredericksburg has been fought and is almost over. Rather than have big swelling triumphant music to show that the battle has been won, instead the sound almost disappears. There is nothing but a quiet piano playing as we see dead and wounded soldiers lying all over the field in the freezing winter. General Robert E Lee looks on the scene through his binoculars and then says (and this is a genuine historical quote), "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."

I think in today's age, where we're fond of war and bloodshed in films (if only because most of us have never experienced these things personally), it's refreshing to have something different expressed. 4 1/2 out of 5.

Twin Peaks - Series 1

2005-07-18T17:25:00.000+10:00

I'm 15 years late, but I've just finished watching the first season of Twin Peaks.

So what was it about this series that made it (to this day) one of the most talked-about series on television?

There were a lot of words used to describe it.

Weird. Creepy. Hilarious. Intense.

And I think that where Twin Peaks stood out from the TV crowd was that it was all those things at once.

For those of you haven't seen it, the series starts in the small mountain town of Twin Peaks with the discovery of the body of Laura Palmer. She was the local prom queen, but now she's just a dead body, wrapped in plastic.

Who killed her? And why?

To say any more would ruin it for anybody who hasn't seen the series, but from there the show just takes increasingly unusual twists.

What makes this series unusual is the combination of different elements, some comic, some strange, some quite normal. So when you meet characters like the Log Lady who carries her log around with her everywhere, this is played in such a straight manner that you just accept it (and the Log Lady is pretty normal compared with some of the stuff this series dishes out).

As to whether you would like it or not, it probably depends on how clearly defined you like your TV. If you want comedy to be strictly for comedies, creepy to be strictly for horror series, and intense to be strictly for dramas, then you're probably going to get irritated with Twin Peaks. For those of you who like a bit of a mixture, then you'll probably quite enjoy this . . .

Incidentally, as far as mysteries go, Series 1 seems to have ended with more questions than answers, so I'm keen to see where it heads in Season 2. But that will be for another review, especially with the DVD release of Season 2 consistently being pushed back. (Apparently, nobody bought enough of Season 1 to make it worthwhile.) 4 1/2 out of 5.

Batman Begins

2005-07-11T15:26:00.000+10:00

So now we have the latest (and, in my opinion) best incarnation on film of Batman. I don't know to what extent American audiences realised this, but this is a largely British take on Batman.

Aside from Katie Holmes, Morgan Freeman and Rutger Hauer, all the main leads were British: Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), Alfred (Michael Caine), Officer Gordon (Gary Oldman), Batman's weird mustached trainer (Liam Neeson - well, okay, he's Irish; but he's not American!), The Scarecrow (Cillian Anderson), mob boss Carmine Falcone (the ever-enjoyable Tom Wilkinson) and both of Bruce Wayne's parents (Linus Roache/Sara Stewart). And, of course, the director himself, Christopher Nolan, is British.

This could well explain why this film takes its subject matter much more seriously. There's not much to laugh at in this film. However, there is much to applaud. Slowly but surely, the story builds up a picture of the tormented Bruce Wayne as he learns the difference between being a vigilante and being a hero, between justice and revenge, between wanting to destroy society and trying to change it. (An interesting story concept, especially in light of all the terrorist activity we've seen in recent years.)

Unlike the increasingly over-the-top Gotham Cities of previous Batman films, this one could pass for any gigantic American city (and most of the filming was done in Chicago). It looks incredible.

But the film's greatest achievement is that when Batman finally does make an appearance (about halfway through the film), the film doesn't degenerate into a cartoon (the main problem with The Hulk film). This film is dark, awe-inspiring and a must-see on the big screen. 5 out of 5.

The In-Laws

2005-07-05T13:52:00.000+10:00

This is a rather quirky little film. From the front of the case you'd think it was a romantic comedy, but it seems to be a bit crazier than that. Michael Douglas stars as a secret CIA agent, who's working on an undercover case involving shady Czech criminals, a French criminal mastermind, and lots of car chases and planes. In between all this, he's trying to get involved with his son's upcoming wedding.

Meanwhile, the father of the bride, Albert Brooks (you'll recognise him as the voice of Nemo's dad from Finding Nemo) is a neurotic, hyperventilating foot doctor who's not at all impressed by his daughter's potential new father-in-law. The movie throws these two together and we watched as Brooks is dragged kicking and screaming into the world of international espionage.

There's some funny moments in here and some very silly ones, but overall this film is enthusiastic enough to keep it up. 3 out of 5.

Tais-toi!

2005-06-28T10:03:00.000+10:00

This is another of Francis Veber's extremely silly (but also very funny) French comedies. Quentin (Gerard Depardieu) is an idiot bank robber who gets himself put in prison and proceeds to irritate the hell out of every inmate that he comes into contact with.

Ruby (Jean Reno) is another thief who has been busted stealing money from his criminal boss. The cops want to catch Ruby's boss, but Ruby won't talk. He just sits in his cell and refuses to say a word.

So the cops put Quentin in his cell, hoping that this will irritate Ruby into talking. However, Ruby doesn't break. Quentin, meanwhile, thinking that this new guy is totally interested in everything he has to say because he "just listens all the time", decides to rescuse his new-found "friend" from prison.

The rest is pretty much just a madcap, silly chase, with a lot of laughs. Not very high-brow, but it makes a change from American comedians. 3 1/2 out of 5.

Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason

2005-06-27T09:54:00.000+10:00

What maked the first Bridget Jones film so unique is that single women in their 30s often do tend to head down the crazy path that Miss Jones tended to follow: analysing everything to death, obsessing over clothes and wardrobe, trying to take advice from friends, etc. What made the film work is that it had a laugh at all of that stuff without being cruel to Bridget or single women.

In the second film, Bridget is in a relationship with her dream man, Mark Darcy. This film plays with all the worried questions that women in relationships have: Does he really like me? What if someone else is better? Will he marry me? When's he going to ask the damn question?
Not as successful as the first one, but it has plenty of amusing moments nonetheless. 3 1/2 out of 5.

Labyrinth

2005-06-24T09:27:00.000+10:00

This gaping hole in my cultural wall was plugged, courtesy of Jordan and Channah - actually, courtesy of Chan; Jordan might want to wash his hands of the whole thing.

This one fell into the category of films my parents would never let me watch as a kid because it "looked horrible". And when you see David Bowie's trousers, you might be inclined to agree.
For those who don't know, a girl named Sarah (played by the 14-year-old Jennifer Connelly) is left at home to babysit her baby brother, Toby. She gets a bit annoyed with his crying, and so she wishes that the goblins would come and take him away.

Enter David Bowie with glittery eye shadow, wild hair and a pair of trousers that I don't really want to talk about. And gazillions of Jim Henson puppets. Despite the fact that Bowie looks like a glam rocker, apparently he's Jareth, king of the goblins.

Before you know it, Jareth has whisked off with young Toby and Sarah has to find her way through a gigantic labyrinth to get to the castle to rescue her brother.

The story here is fairly ordinary fantasy stuff. There's a child, a quest, and an evil king or queen at the end of it all. The music itself reminds us all that's bad (or good, depending on your point of view) about the 80s. Bowie himself is pretty embarrassing.

But the real winner here is the massive puppetry operation of Jim Henson, and the art direction. Some of the characters and sets are quite eye-catching and still fascinating to look at after all these years. (It reminds me a bit of Yellow Submarine.)

Final verdict? If you're a kid, I think you're still going to find this enjoyable. If you're an adult, possibly less so. If you hate puppets or MC Escher, then don't bother. I'll give it a 3 1/2 out of 5.

The Terminal

2005-06-23T08:47:00.000+10:00

Now HERE'S a much simpler film to review. Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a man who arrives at a New York airport from a small European country. However, he finds out when he arrives that his home country has been overturned by rebels and the US has frozen all relations with the country.

What this means is that poor old Viktor isn't allowed to enter the US, because it's illegal, but neither can he return home because his passport is invalid. The head of airport security (Stanley Tucci), hopes that Viktor will just make a break for it out of the airport so that he can become somebody else's problem but, no, Viktor plays by the rules . . . and stays in the terminal.
Making himself at home in an unfinished wing of the airport, Viktor slowly works his way into the hearts of everybody in the airport.

This film is quite a good light piece of entertainment (under the hand of Steven Spielberg, would we expect any less?). I through the production values "weren't too bad", until I looked at some of the extra features and realised that they actually built an entire airport terminal to shoot this film in. That blew me away.

Anyway, if you want to watch something nice one time, and you can cope with the idea of Tom Hanks speaking Russian (it takes a while to get used to, but after half an hour, I'd bought the idea), then you will love this film. 4 out of 5.

Three Colours: White

2005-06-22T17:11:00.000+10:00

For those of you who aren't up to speed on 10-year-old arthouse films, the Polish director Krysztof Kieslowski was famous in the 80s and 90s for making films in series. He made a 10-episode TV series called The Decalogue, which dealt with the ten commandments. Each episode was a themed (sometimes explicity, sometimes vaguely) around one of the ten commandments.

Kieslowski then came back in the 90s and made, over a period of just two years, three films called the Three Colours trilogy. The three colours were pulled from the three colours of the French flag: Blue, White and Red. Each of the colours stands for a different ideal (blue for liberty, white for equality and red for fraternity).

And so, each of these three films (you guessed it) features predominantly one primary colour and also (you guessed it again) deals with one of these topics. However, the director's a bit quirky, so sometimes the subjects are dealt with in strange ways.

For instance, in Blue, which deals with liberty, it's all about a woman (Juliette Binoche) who loses her husband and children in a car accident. So she's suddenly "free", if you like, from all her old ties, but she's rather miserable about the whole thing. I saw Blue on video many years ago and all I remember of it was that the soundtrack was excellent, the movie was rather slow, and I wasn't sure if it was as deep as people made out . . .

So now I've returned to the trilogy after all these years. This was mainly because the North Sydney library had the soundtracks on CD, and I've fallen in love with the Three Colours: Red soundtrack. (I've yet to see the film, however.)

So I borrowed White on video to give it a look. This film is apparently an example of the Polish sense of humour. As I said above, this film is about equality. So it starts with a poor Polish hairdresser named Karol Karol being dragged through the divorce courts by his French wife for not consummating their marriage.

So . . . he's unequal because a) can't speak the language, b) can't please his wife, and c) has no money to his name.

Anyway, the movie tells the story of how he makes his way back to Poland (under rather amusing circumstances), completely reverses his circumstances and, once he's put himself back in a more equal footing, to get revenge on his wife. Kind of. You'll have to watch it to see what I mean, and you may not want to because it's slow, arty and got subtitles. On its own, I'll give it 3 1/2 out of 5. I suspect it'll go to a 4 seen as part of the whole trilogy. I'll give you more info when/if I get around to seeing Red.

Dirty Dancing

2005-06-21T10:18:00.000+10:00

I can understand why this movie was a hit in the 80s. I can understand why the soundtrack has gone on to be famous.

However, I really can't stand this film. While I actually quite enjoy the music, the messages this film carries are appalling. We watch young "Baby" (Jennifer Grey) as she goes on summer vacation with her family in the 60s. Though I think 60s should probably be used a little bit guardedly.

From what I could see, apart from a few 60s cars, the fashions in the film seemed to have a decidedly 80s slant. Also, the music ranges from a lot of 60s pop and then throws in 80s numbers that stand out like a sore thumb . . .

But I think the most disturbing thing is its hits on Christian morality. The message is drive home clearly that the big change in the world in the 60s was the opening up of free sex.
Oddly enough, the film seems to carry mixed messages about this. We see the character of Penny, the dancing partner of Johnny (Patrick Swayze), who gets pregnant and has an abortion. It's because she's having an abortion that Baby suddenly becomes Johnny's new dancing partner and enters the world of this "new" dancing.

The abortion is portrayed as quite a traumatic thing because a) the abortionist is a cheap hack who almost kills Penny and b) the father is a selfish guy who was just having a fling.

However, what's amazing is that really this trauma springs out of the wildly over-sexed nature of the time. (Or at least the time as portrayed in this film.) The first time you see the so-called "dirty" dancing in this film, it's like watching an orgy with clothes on.

And soon we see Baby and Johnny jumping into the sack together . . . and what's the basis for their "love"? They like dancing together!

My goodness!! And we wonder why teenage girls are still getting pregnant . . . If true love is having sex with someone you enjoy grinding up against on the dance floor, then, boy, have we missed the boat . . .

I'll give it a 1 out of 5. The 1's for the music.

Crash

2005-06-20T09:49:00.000+10:00

It's rather interesting that this is the next film I've seen since After the Deluge because, while this film is completely different, the underlying philosophy seems to be very similar: an underlying call for us to put aside our differences, understand each other, and get along. Obviously, my opinion on this philosophy is the same as for Deluge.

Crash is the modern-day equivalent of Intolerance (which, of course, is the picture I use in the corner of this page). I once heard DW Griffith's silent masterpiece labelled a "cinema sermon". It starts with a thesis (this film is going to talk about man's intolerance towards man) and then the four stories that follow all tell different stories about intolerance. As the years have progressed, the message that Intolerance was trying to convey seems a bit heavy-handed. However, the sheer technical brilliance and impact with which it was conveyed remains breath-taking and ambitious to this day.

I suspect this is how we'll remember Crash, as a cinema sermon. It, too, starts with a thesis. Don Cheadle tells us that, in LA, everyone drives around in cars, and nobody ever comes into contact with a real person (unlike the other major cities of the world). So maybe, he says, we crash into each other because we really want to have some contact with each other? It turns out that the kind of contact he's talking about is inter-racial contact, because this film, as we very quickly work out, is a film about racism.

That speech out of the way, the title Crash comes up, and the movie proper begins. It tells the intersecting story of a number of different characters over a two-day period. I'll let you see the movie yourself to see how it all pans out, but there are some big names in there. None of the characters are particularly three-dimensional, but their stories represent different aspects of racism.

We see the stereotypical white couple - he (Brendan Fraser) is the LA District Attorney and wants to show favour to minorities so he can win votes. His wife (Sandra Bullock) is completely neurotic about any foreigners, from her maid to the poor guy fixing the lock on the door.
Then we see the Persian shop owner, himself a victim of racist attitudes from a white gun shop owner. However, later, we see the same Persian being suspicious of the same lock guy in his shop.

Meanwhile, the poor old lock guy just lives at home quietly with his wife and daughter and doesn't cause ANY trouble. So both those characters have misjudged him, see?

This is pretty much how this film works, however, multiply those characters by about 5, and you've got a film that's loaded with characters and intersections.

The brilliance of it is not so much it's strong anti-racist message (which comes off a little too heavy-handed) but watching how all the characters are set up as being a certain type of person, and then the script goes back and causes major reversals for nearly all of them. To say any more would ruin one of the more clever scripts out there. 4 out of 5.

After the Deluge

2005-06-17T17:25:00.000+10:00

Watched this one on DVD. This was a two-part miniseries shown on Channel 10 a couple of years ago, created by the same writers (Andrew Knight and Deb Cox) as Seachange (which I shall review at some time in the future).

The more I see of these writers' work, the more they blow me away. What makes them stand out is that they deal with real issues relating to real people without getting a) boring, b) morbid or c) ridiculously arty. So often films or stories that are going to deal with real people tend to go down a strange arthouse line that is interesting to watch but makes it hard to relate to.

The CoxKnight stories, by contrast, are always accessible, and will often contain a wide range of emotions: happiness, sadness, anger. Combine that with great actors, and you usually end up with top-notch television.

So what is After the Deluge about? It tells the story of Cliff Kirby (played by Ray Barrett), an old man suffering the onset of Alzheimer's disease. As dementia sets in, he retreats more and more into his past, seeing images of the war, his lost love, Maggie, and his three young sons. It's almost impossible for Cliff to differentiate between the real world and the dream world.
By contrast, very much stuck in the real world are Cliff's three grown-up sons. There's Martin (played by Hugo Weaving), Alex (played by David Wenham) and Toby (played by Samuel Johnson). To the three of them, their father was just an over-bearing tyrant who they were never good enough for. (In fact, one of the themes of this story is the relentless search for "perfection".)

However, as Cliff's life hits a crisis, so too do the boys have to deal with their lives and how they have been impacted by their man. All three of them have headed in different directions in life. The brilliance of the writing on this show is that between the three brothers, they have pretty much captured the problems with males in this period in history.

The eldest brother, Martin, went the path of anti-authoritarian rebellion. In his younger days, he was part of a rock band, deliberately to spite his classical violin-playing father.. Now, he's washed up, trying to cover up for his insecurities by having a constant stream of young girlfriends. It is through his awkward relationship with a coffee-shop owner (Rachel Griffiths), that we see his fears and insecurities start to come through.

Alex took the path probably most common to men nowadays: the call of career and materialism. When we first see him, he has a wife and two kids, a nice house, and a well-paying job. But that starts to crash around him when his wife wants a divorce and he realises that while he may have everything, he has nothing.

And finally, there is Toby, played beautifully by Samuel Johnson, who is the sensitive one of the group. Unlike Martin, he's tried to be a good son and is the one who is desperately trying to achieve a reconciliation between his father and his sons, especially Martin, who hasn't spoken to his dad in years. Unlike Alex, he's deliberately shied away from the corporate high-life and has put time into his marriage. His one sadness is that he and his wife are unable to have children.

The most interesting thing about this film is that, compared to the women in their lives, it is the men who are the weak ones. The women, while they have their own problems, seem to have it more together. This is probably not too far removed from the current state of affairs.

This film is worth watching for the acting talent alone, which is outstanding. Wenham, Weaving and Griffiths are three of our best-known Australian actors and everyone else, while perhaps less known, is no less outstanding. The writing is clever and has layer upon layer of significance that you pick up the more you watch it and think about it.

And, for me, of course, one of the highlights is the soundtrack. The unusual music by Cezary Skubiszewski spans a wide variety of styles and genres (having to cope with Cliff, the classical buff, and Martin, the rocker), but at all times works brilliantly.

Overall, After the Deluge is overwhelmingly powerful, with scenes that would wring tears from a stone.

The main beef I have with this program is the secular conclusion it reaches (however, it is extremely typical of the thinking of our day). I think if this series had been made in the 90s, the ending would have been very bleak, with no hope for anyone. The ending in this series (without giving too much away), while not being a soppy reconciliation - which wouldn't have been at all realistic - is, nonetheless, affirming that what is important to our happiness is two things: maturity (so that we are not constantly hampered by what happened to us in the past) and relationships with others (so that we don't become inward and selfish). The journey, ultimately, in this story, is the growth in maturity of the three brothers.

However, as a Christian, I believe that the writers have missed the point, even of their own story. It's sin in our lives that causes us to have fractured relationships with those around us and makes a mess of our lives. This is something inbuilt within us from the moment we're born that we have to struggle with all our lives. It's only God's grace constantly working in us that helps us to make right choices and put things right.

Without that, we are relying on the same imperfect human nature that caused the problems in the first place. So while the boys may learn from their father's mistakes and work on their relationships with their children and partners (and certainly it's good to be reminded that we don't necessarily follow in the paths we've grown up with), without some guidance or higher purpose for life, are they really going to find more fulfilment? If it's only found in good relationships with others, what happens when others let us down?

Anyway, I could go on for ages about this show. If you're a man and you want to get a handle on what drives the Australian male nowadays, then don't miss After the Deluge. You may even recognise in these characters some of the false idols you get tempted to follow after in life. 4 1/2 out of 5.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

2005-06-16T11:43:00.000+10:00

By far, of the new trilogy, this one is the best. The last hour especially is amazing, perhaps not for its plot or character development (and, hey, this is Star Wars here, so I wasn't expecting much), but the power of the images.

I didn't realise it until I saw this film, but Star Wars is like a new myth for this generation. It will go down in history with things such as Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz for creating a new world with highly memorable characters. As the threads start to draw together in this film and the things we recognise come on screen, there is a sense of awe that you feel.

When you see the familiar Darth Vader costume being put on Anakin, and you hear him speak, not in the voice we've heard for the last two films, but in the deep tones of James Earl Jones, we realise what an impact Darth made on our childhood. 4 out of 5.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2005-06-16T11:42:00.000+10:00

Am now very, very late with my reviews, because I saw this at least a month ago. What put me off most about this film was the rampant Americanisation of what I've always imagined in my head as a fairly British story.

However, that said, by the second hour, I was enjoying myself thoroughly and re-living all my favourite bits, some of which were recreated in quite a breath-taking manner.

Put it this way - if there were no radio show or novels, we'd think this was a cute, quirky little movie. And so, on that basis, 3 1/2 out of 5. Hopefully, if they do a sequel, it will be better.

Soundtracks: A Simple Plan

2005-06-07T14:42:00.000+10:00

There are a few soundtracks I own that fall into a rather strange category: they're rather unpleasant sounding, at least in a melodic way, but they catch the ears in other ways.

A Simple Plan is one such soundtrack. I don't know if you've seen the film, but it was directed by Sam Raimi (Spiderman), and it was one of the best thrillers I've ever seen. Not because of the plot twists or anything like that, but because of the sheer depth of character. Every time I watch it, I get blown away, which is saying something.

One of the main contributors to my awe of this film is the soundtrack. Because it's set in a small American town in the middle of a snowy winter, the film has a kind of folky soundtrack with an edge. It's impossible to describe unless you hear it, but Danny Elfman scored the music for about 9 flutes, detuned pianos and guitars, and some strings.

All in all, it has a very atmospheric sound, but what I love best of all is the clarity of the sound. A lot of soundtracks seem to morph all the instruments together and it just sounds like a kind of lump sound, which can be a bit unpleasant. But in this soundtrack, everything sounds clean, and you can hear what every instrument is up to. I know that none of this makes any sense without actually hearing the music, but if you watch the movie, it works brilliantly because of its soundtrack, and wouldn't be the same without it.

Richard III

2005-05-25T22:02:00.000+10:00

Showed this one to Rachel on DVD the other day. She was less than impressed, and I think her long love affair with Shakespeare has finally come to an end. "Why would anyone want to watch Shakespeare plays?" she asked, after seeing this film.

Oddly enough, it was films like this that attracted me to Shakespeare in the first place . . .

And, of course, Richard III is the most-performed of all Shakespeare's play, so that tells you something. The original play tells the story of Richard of Gloucester, who murders and schemes his way to the throne ofEngland, wiping out anyone who stands in the way of him becoming king and anyone who opposes him afterwards.

Now, there is a fair bit of debate as to whether Richard was actually as big a dirtbag as Shakespeare paints him (and I expect he wasn't), however, as far as stage villains go, it doesn't get any more evil than this. Richard talks straight to the audience, and explains to them all his plans and schemes. We get to sit right in on it and watch him scheme around everyone else. And we love it.

This version plays to that very well. Ian McKellen (in the performance that really raised him from obscurity) stars as Richard in this production which is set in the 1930s. Of all modern Shakespeare updates, this is, by far, the cleverest. Just by changing the "thees" and"thous" to "you" and "yours" and by cutting some of the more supernatural elements from the script, this film adapts over really well to the 30s as we watch a black-shirt fascist Richard rise to power.

There's only two quibbles I have with this film:

1) They clearly had a limited budget. There's some spectacular pyrotechnics in the climactic battle, but there are no wide shots to show us that they probably shot everything with only two tanks, and a couple of cars in a backlot somewhere. This is a pity, because it was begging to be turned into a big epic battle scene.

2) More seriously, there just is no emotional connection (which I normally get from most of Shakespeare's works). While the characters are fascinating to watch, I don't care about any of them. So I watch the film more out of interest in how it's done rather than engagement with the characters.

For emotional depth, you really can't go past the amazing low-budget documentary made by Al Pacino called Looking for Richard. He doesn't do the whole play, but the bits he does do are amazing. But for Ian's version, it's a 4 out of 5.

Seinfeld: Volume 1

2005-05-13T15:35:00.000+10:00

Rach and I finished watching Volume 1 of Seinfeld, which consisted of Season 1 (all five episodes of it) and 13 episodes which got made for Season 2.

I was never a die-hard Seinfeld fan (unlike Rachel, who bought this DVD), but I can start to see the attraction and why this show took off. They were still feeling their way, so it was a little bit hit and miss, but there's some very funny episodes in here. There's all kinds of good stuff here, such as the pony comment, the "stake out", George's revenge on his boss ("I'm going to slip him a mickey!"), the holistic healer, the stolen statue. I won't go on about it. It's funny stuff. 4 out of 5.

Lady and the Tramp II

2005-05-09T10:06:00.000+10:00

Saw this as part of my babysitting efforts in Bathurst. Lady and the Tramp is a little bit nostalgic for me because it was the first film that I ever saw at the movies when Dad took me back in 1984. (That was in the good old days when A) films had an intermission and supporting features and B) old Disney cartoons were brought back regularly to be seen on the big screen.)

This movie is a fairly by-the-numbers piece, though, unlike Stepmom, does have some fairly good things to say about fathers and sons. It's also interesting to see the depths that Chazz Palminteri and Scott Wolf have fallen to . . .But if you're not a kid, you're not going to rush out and watch this one. 2 1/2 out of 5.

Stepmom

2005-05-09T10:05:00.001+10:00

Rach and her friend Bec watched this while we were staying in Bathurst, and I just happened to be in the room . . . Ed Harris has separated from his wife Susan Sarandon and has now taken up with Julia Roberts. So Julia is now stepmum to Ed's two kids (who are quite bratty). The movie revolves around the tension between the real mother and the stepmum, who never feels good enough and is always having a disastrous time of it.

And then . . . there is, of course, the weepie tear-jerker twist . . . But I won't spoil that one.
what I will comment on is that this movie, while it's designed for women and about women, probably says a lot about men. What kind of spineless jerk is Ed Harris' husband character? He manages to stuff up one marriage, and is seen cowering amidst the warfare going on between the two women in his life.

And what kind of father is he?? The whole film is revolving around whether the kids need their real mother or their stepmother. What about their father? Why isn't he looking after them? If this is typical of modern man, we're a pathetic bunch of losers. 3 out of 5.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

2005-05-09T10:05:00.000+10:00

Down to quick reviews now to clear the backlog. Watched this courtesy of Fish as well. I'm a fan of Tim Burton's stuff and his kind of quirky, gothic world that he loves, and certainly this had a lot of imagination. But, storywise, I felt it was a little bit slow to get moving.

For those who don't know the storyline, all the different holidays (Easter, Christmas, Halloween, etc.) have their own lands. King of Halloween land is Jack Skellington, who makes sure that there is a successful Halloween every year. However, while wandering one day, Jack comes upon Christmas land and decides that he would like to have a go at running it.

So he kidnaps Santa, and kids around the world start getting horrible things for Christmas presents . . . to be honest, it's a bit of a one-joke idea that gets stretched out to an hour and a quarter. There's not necessarily that much of a plot. I'll give it 3 1/2 out of 5 for imagination.

The Interpreter

2005-05-09T10:04:00.000+10:00

Saw this at the good old Reading Cinemas in Dubbo. The Interpreter stars Nicole Kidman as a white African interpreter at the United Nations who overhears some men speaking in a little-known African language that somebody will be assassinated in the UN. Sean Penn is the investigator assigned to the case who's not sure whether he believes her or not.

The thing is, this felt like it should have been a great film. The director is solid, the lead actors are all good, and there was plenty of potential to make it more than a typical thriller. What was it meant to be? Was it meant to be a pro-UN film, in a day and age when American wants to do its own thing, regardless of the UN? It didn't really make a strong case.

Was it a film about genocide and killing in Africa? It if was, it didn't really seem specific enough to make a point about it, except for using it as the background for the action that was taking place in America.

So the only thing we're left with is a by-the-numbers thriller. This film is unique in being the first film to be set in the UN, but other than that, I'm afraid I'm going to have to give it a 2 1/2 out of 5 for being instantly forgettable.

Black Adder: Fourth Season and Back and Forth

2005-05-09T10:03:00.000+10:00

Whilst on the Dubbo holiday, my friend Fish introduced Rachel and I to Blackadder. We've been working backwards at the moment, because we started by seeing Blackadder: Back and Forth, which was a special made to be shown in the Millennium Dome in 70mm.

We then followed this up by going through the entire Fourth Season of Blackadder while we were staying at Fish's place. The whole thing is an interesting comedy concept that I'm sure must have divided audiences when it came out and will continue to do so. The concept is basically Rowan Atkinson stars as Edmund Blackadder, and his character appears in various historical settings throughout English history.

It's a strange show because it combines some fairly clever pokes at English history (which is very funny when you consider how proud the English are of their heritage) with some fairly low-brow off-colour humour. It's clear to see how it developed a cult following. Probably a 4 out of 5 in its good moments.

The Thin Red Line

2005-04-26T20:11:00.000+10:00

As part of my newness block, I watched this DVD so I could return it to a guy from work. Now, the last time I saw The Thin Red Line was when it came out at the theatres and I remember at the time, I wrote it off as being visually spectacular but way too arty to make any sense.

This is one film that I'm happy to reverse my initial judgment on. Being about 8 or 9 years older now, I think the film holds up really well. I think, also, it is a lot easier to follow now because what were rather anonymous soldiers 8 or 9 years ago are now quite famous movie actors. Ben Chaplin has gone on to do things such as Birthday Girl with Nicole Kidman. Adrien Brody went on to win the Oscar for The Pianist and now seems to be getting a regular supply of work. (Considering that he has about one line of dialogue in the whole of this film.)

And, most importantly, Jim Caviezel went on to play Jesus in The Passion of the Christ. It's interesting, but since his portrayal of Jesus, it's really strange watching him doing anything else. However, if anything The Passion has enhanced his role as Witt, the compassionate soldier with a heart.

If you've never seen this film, it deals with the battle of Guadalcanal inWWII. However, what makes this film stand out is not the combat, but rather the style. There are lots of intercut scenes of nature, as if putting the whole battle within the context of a world at war with itself (so we see lots of strangling vines, and predatory animals such as crocodiles, etc.)

Also quite prominent are voiceovers, where the characters talk about their innermost thoughts, often in a kind of abstract, stream-of-consciousness style. This was probably what annoyed me most about the film the first time I saw it, however, now, I think it works quite effectively. Rather than having to contrive a situation or show some kind of background to establish a character, we can get right in there. We can see, for instance, that despite all Nick Nolte's bluster, he finds himself forced to act in a way that he hates. Use of voiceover, and fleeting flashbacks show us how Ben Chaplin is driven constantly by a love of his wife.

Overall, this is quite a powerful and unique war film and, while it's too long and too arty to watch for a night with the blokes, for those quiet, more thoughtful nights, this film is well worth watching. 4 1/2 out of 5.

Downfall

2005-04-19T09:40:00.000+10:00

I saw this film as part of the German Film Festival in Sydney, so there were a large number of Germans in the audience, and a German professor from the University of New South Wales, who spoke briefly before the movie and fielded questions afterwards. He brought to our attention the rather interesting controversy surrounding the film.

Downfall chronicles the mad last 10 days of the Nazis in Berlin, leading up to the suicide of Hitler and a lot of his staff. Hitler and his top staff had moved into an underground bunker, his armies were in tatters all around Berlin, unable to stop the advancing Russians. Civilians who hadn't fled Berlin were being hunted down and executed for being traitors to the Nazi cause.

The film is told predominantly from the point of view of Traudl Junge, a young woman who was Hitler's secretary at the time. According to a narration by the real Junge at the beginning and end of the film, she had no idea of the real depths of Hitler's depravity at the time. It just seemed like an exciting job, so she took it. So she is the naive character and the one person we feel for and hope she makes it out alive. (Just to make sure we do, she is played by Alexandra Maria Lara, a very beautiful Romanian actress.)

The film itself is very well made, with outstanding production values. I don't know too much about the last days of the Reich, but as far as a historical costume drama goes, everything about this film loooks utterly real and convincing. The acting also is quite well done, with everyone turning in an exceptional performance. The mixture of the surreal and the ordinary details of life is extraordinary. The last 45 minutes is rather grim as Hitler and a lot of his associates commit suicide. Especially confronting is watching Goebbel's wife poison her six children before she and her husband committed suicide. They would rather do this than let them grow up in a world with Nazism.

What I will talk about is the main points of controversy with the film. In Germany, for a while, there was a complaint that the film portrayed Hitler as a human being. The film certain does this, and we get to see (amidst the ranting and raving that we associate with Hitler), a kinder man who is tender to his mistress and female staff, kind to his dog, etc. However, we also see quite clearly how this man was capable of killing millions of people.

The other major point of contention is that there is no real point to the movie. It just shows us the history and doesn't draw any conclusions. This has been a major bugbear for a lot of reviewers and historians.

I've been thinking about this all weekend (it's that kind of movie). At first, I was inclined to agree that there were no conclusions drawn by the movie. But then, I started thinking, "Well, what kind of conclusions do people want to draw anyway?" I assume that the complainers would have liked to see either: a) Some kind of emphasis put on the fact that the Nazis deserved everything that they got (rather than feeling sorry for some of them) or b) Some kind of explanation for why they did the things they did or c) More stuff about the people they killed and the atrocities they committed.

Now, I'm not saying that this is exactly the kind of thing that people felt was missing from the film, but I can't see what else they felt was missing.

However, I believe that what the filmmaker has tapped into is the reversal of thinking that took place when the world rejected Christianity. As a Christian, I believe in the doctrine of original sin. I believe that everyone is born sinful and depraved, and the only reason we're not all like Hitler is because of the grace of God.

When you approach life from a Christian point of view, evil people no longer become quite as problematic as you think they were, because we know evil exists in the world.

Another important point about Christianity is that in terms of God's justice, because all people are sinful, social punishments and judgments are handed out in the Bible based on crimes, not on people. So if somebody committed murder, or stole something, in the Bible they were punished for the crime, because that type of sin could not go unpunished.

However, modern justice has turned that on its head. We now work on the assumption that all men are good, and therefore, in a modern Court of law, rather than simply fit a punishment based on the crime, we fit our judgment to the person. (So if somebody was accused of stealing, we'd look into their background. Bad upbringing and lousy parents? We'd lower the sentence. They felt a bit sorry for what they'd done? We'd lower the penalty, etc.)

The problem with this approach is that we have real troubles when we come across evil in its more extreme forms. We see Hitler and the Nazis (undoubtedly one of the greatest and most memorable examples of evil behaviour in the 20th century) and all of a sudden we find that we don't want to think about how a "good" person could do such things. So, turning our back on the idea of good people who sometimes do bad things, we have usually viewed Hitler as a monster with no good in him.

Downfall has highlighted this flaw in our thinking. We see a group of people who could be polite and nice to each other, who could show compassion. We see people, in other words, that we can understand and empathise with, because they were sinful people, as we are. Granted, from a social perspective, their crimes were a lot worse, but that doesn't mean that the Germans were non-human. When you realise that the same inescapable potential for sin lies in all men, then the fact that we can see good and bad behaviour in people falls into place.

In this movie we see evil in its complexity, and its not something we're used to. Now, I'm not saying that the film maker had this message about original sin in his head when he was making the film. In fact, I believe there is something to the complaint that he is just telling a story without having a point. But, nonetheless, reading the facts of history can often tell us something about mankind and his relationship to God, and so we can learn a lot about the nature of evil from this fascinating film. 4 1/2 out of 5.

High Crimes

2005-04-11T06:42:00.000+10:00

Was recommended this as a good film with a twist.

A successful lawyer (Ashley Judd) has her world majorly shaken up when her husband (Jim Caviezel) gets arrested by the FBI. It turns out that, before they were married, he was a Marine and he's wanted for shooting 9 people in a village whilst on a mission.

He'll get the death penalty if he's found guilty so Ashley decides to defend her husband, with the help of Morgan Freeman, a lawyer who's experienced in the ways of military justice.

This is actually a fairly solid courtroom drama, and Judd and Freeman are both entertaining to watch. It's strange seeing Jim Caviezel do anything in English and/or without a beard since The Passion of the Christ.

The only unfortunate thing I found was that because I was told there was a twist, I immediately guessed what it was and I was right. Which probably means I've just ruined it for my readers out there. I'm sorry. 3 1/2 out of 5.

Soundtracks: Kikujiro

2005-04-08T15:22:00.000+10:00

This is one of those movies that is a bit of a nothing film, but it has quite a nice soundtrack. This was a Japanese movie by the famous Japanese film maker Takeshi Kitano (Hana-Bi, Brother, Zatoichi) which tells the story of a little boy trying to find his mother, and the rather strange guy who looks after him. So it's a bit of a road trip film.

Anyway, it has a very beautiful soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi, who is rapidly becoming recognised for his scores on films such as Spirited Away. This soundtrack is mostly piano and orchestra and is fairly simple. This is one of those soundtracks that I buy because I can tell it will make nice relaxing music to listen to in the background. It's also Rachel's favourite soundtrack, so I had to include it.

Once Upon A Time in the West

2005-04-07T09:42:00.000+10:00

All right, folks, this is one of the big ones:

The Greatest Western Ever Made

I'm not a die-hard fan of westerns. (That was always my dad's department.) However, maybe it's because I'm getting older, I can now see the coolness factor in some of them.

And this is the pick of the bunch. Made by Italian director, Sergio Leone, Once Upon A Time in the West was his final homage to Westerns. The story, such as it is, tells of the arrival of the railroad in the wild west. Philosophically, the story is about the change from the old frontier, with its tough men, to the new modern cities, where women tended to take over and there was no place for these kind of men anymore.

The McBain family gets killed by Frank (played by Henry Fonda, who never played bad guys and shocked everyone in this movie), a an evil desperado working for a railroad baron.

However, at the same time, a unnamed man who plays a harmonica arrives in town (played by the one and only Chuck Bronson). There's a bit more to it than this, but I won't go into details.
What's amazing about this film is that it has only about 15 pages of actual spoken dialogue and yet it runs for 2 hours 40 minutes. Leone drags the movie out for all its worth, with lots of close-ups of faces, awesome music by Ennio Morricone (this is one of the greatest soundtracks of all time) and other cool stuff. For instance, the famous opening credit sequence runs for 10 minutes and just consists of three shifty-looking guys waiting for a train.

If you like spaghetti westerns (or if you've never watched one), you owe it to yourself to watch this film. Especially if you can see it on DVD in widescreen, because the cinematography is awesome. This is a big 5 out of 5.

P.S. Chicks don't seem to go for this one so much. So make that 2 out of 5 if you're a girl.

The Ring Two

2005-04-06T17:14:00.000+10:00

I probably should have reviewed the first film before reviewing this one, but I didn't have a blog back then. (A quick review is that, for what it is, I five it the full 5 out of 5 as a nearly perfect and very clever entry into the horror genre.)

Now, for this second one. Well, let me start by saying that it's a damn sight better than the Japanese Ring 2. I know American remakes are never as good, but the original American The Ring and this one here have both been superior items. This film worked by largely ditching the stuff from the Japanese sequel (which really didn't seem very scary at all).

If you haven't seen the original, it told the story of a bizarre video tape. A week after you watched it, you died. This was all connected with the ghost of a girl called Samara and her strange powers. I won't say any more. The main character in the story was a single mother, Rachel (played by Naomi Watts) and her encounter with Samara and the video tape.

In this new version, Samara has returned. However, the movie veers away from the video tape storyline and goes for a possession storyline. So, overall, it's not quite as clever or unique as the original. However, as a series of scary scenes (which is what we watch these horror films for, let's face it), I thought it was quite effective. 4 out of 5.

Soundtracks: Vertigo

2005-04-05T12:06:00.000+10:00

After a long hiatus, back to soundtracks. This soundtrack is by Bernard Herrmann, who is widely regarded as a master of soundtracks, and has done the soundtracks for some of the most famous films ever made, with a diabolically long career. Would you believe, this one guy wrote the soundtrack for Citizen Kane, back in the 40s (now regarded as one of the greatest films of all time), wrote the majority of Hitchcock soundtracks in the 60s (especially his famous films), and finally finished up by writing the soundtrack for Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese's film from the 70s, again regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.

So Herrmann has been around.

I find his soundtracks are the kind I have to steel myself up for, because they can often be dark, brooding and discordant (think the Psycho music, and you know what I'm talking about). However, I admire them because they're beautifully orchestrated and really, really clever.

And of all his soundtracks, this one, Vertigo, is my favourite. It's also my favourite Alfred Hitchcock film. I won't go into great details about the film here (I'll save it to a time when I can review the film), but it is a classic tale of obsession. It's about a man who gets so obsessed with an unattainable, mysterious woman that the real world just seems to disappear around him.

So Herrmann drew for his inspiration on the music of Richard Wagner, especially his opera Tristan and Isolde. This opera was also about a couple who cannot be together. In the opera, it is a knight, Tristan, who falls in love with the princess, Isolde, that he is delivering to his king. She falls in love as well, but of course, because she is betrothed (which was as good as married in Wagner's time), it would be immoral for them to be together.

However (and this is something to think about next time you listen to music), Wagner wants us to be on the side of the lovers, not on the side of morality. So, in the opera (which goes for over four hours), the music is highly emotional. It is designed to sneak past your morals, and make you feel the pain of this love which cannot be. The music kind of gets you on edge for four hours and, amazingly, it is only in the last minutes of the opera (as Isolde dies - Tristan died half an hour before) that the music resolves itself in the most beautiful music imaginable.

This was the idea. To work on your emotions and bypass your morals. Via the help of music, emotions were to replace morality as the new guideline for life. This was "Just Do It" for the 1800s.

Now, while not everybody who listens to this music will necessarily throw morals to the wind and chase after passion, it is interesting that Wagner's music is very similar to our modern soundtracks. Nearly all of the tricks that our modern soundtrack composers use are designed to achieve the emotional response that bypasses the thinking, moralistic side of our brain.

So if you listen to both Tristan and the Vertigo soundtrack, you will hear similarities that have been done on purpose. In Hitchcock's movie, where the man is a private detective investigating another man's wife, who has been acting strangely, this same passion and emotion starts to override all his sensibilities, and this is reflected in the music.

However - and this is very interesting - Hitchcock can't make the same leap as Wagner did. In his film, without giving too much away, there are consequences in store for a man who goes after a forbidden woman. So whereas Tristan and Isolde has a glorious, beautiful ending, the Vertigo soundtrack heads in a much darker direction.

Overall, if you want to hear outstanding orchestral writing for film, or you're a Wagner fan, you'll want to hear this music.

The Office: Season Two

2005-04-05T12:05:00.000+10:00

Caught up with this on the Easter weekend as well. The second season was equally as brilliant as the first season (perhaps even more so), catching beautifully the life in an office. This series of six episodes ranges from the hilarious to the dark to truly embarrassing. I won't say anything more about it, because it's really better seen than heard about.

If you work in an office, or love British comedy, I'm sure you'll give this a 5 out of 5 as well.

What A Girl Wants

2005-04-04T12:29:00.000+10:00

An unusual offering to be on my arts page, perhaps? Very unusual. However, whilst travelling to Brisbane, the last leg of the journey was via coach, and this was the movie they offered while we were travelling. So, thus, a review.

The story, for those of you who don't know, is about Daphne, a young 15-year-old girl in America (played by Amanda Bynes) who for most of her life has growth up with her single mother. Her mother has often told her about her father, a wealthy Englishman whom she met in the middle East, Henry Dashwood (played by Colin Firth, who gets paid just to pretend to be wealthy Englishmen . . . actually, he might be one by now). They were kind of married in a bizarre middle Eastern wedding, but when they went back to England, Henry's folks didn't approve of his new "wife" and she left so as not to stand in the way of his political career.

Anyway, 15 years later, the daughter he never knew he had, heads off to England on her own to meet her father, who is now in the middle of running for Parliament. He is also about to get married to a social climbing woman and her bratty daughter. Need I say any more? Of course not.

Now, this movie is pretty average fare, however, it does tell you some interesting things about what girls want when it comes to movies. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, guys, but the comedy in chick flicks and romantic comedies actually operates on a different structure than it does in comedies aimed at guys. Guys tend to have a much more nasty streak when it comes to comedies. We laugh at people being hurt or killed. Or we laugh at off-colour jokes and jokes to do with bodily functions. Or jokes at the expense of stupid people.

But female humour is very different and I believe it's a reaction to the message culture has delivered to women in the past few decades. If you grow up a female now, unless you're completely sheltered from all forms of media, you quickly get the message that a normal female must be glamorous looking, wear the right clothes and have the right accessories.

In addition to the externals, they've also got to say the right things in public or risk looking stupid. Woe betide the woman who laughs at the wrong thing, says the wrong thing, or generally does something embarrassing in public. Life, for a female, is a constant minefield as they tiptoe around hoping that they can make it through a day without embarrassing themselves.

Embarrassment is the number one horror factor in a female's mind nowadays. Said the wrong thing in front of somebody? "How embarrassing!" Wore the wrong outfit to a party? "It was SO embarrassing!" Tripped over something in public? "How embarrassing!"

Now, guys get somewhat mystified by this because we tend to be always wearing the wrong clothes, and saying the wrong things. Do we care? Not really.

Which is why we don't understand female comedy. We don't understand that women are watching some other woman go through all the things they would be MORTIFIED to have happen to themselves. So, that's why, you'll see in nearly all romantic comedies, the following lynchpins of female comedy:

Somebody wearing a daggy outfit in public. (Horribly embarrassing, but hilarious when it happens to someone else.)
A woman saying the wrong thing in public and totally embarrassing herself. (Again, excruciatingly painful in real life.)
A woman getting carried away dancing by herself and getting sprung by someone else (Totally embarrassing)
A woman crying in public at the wrong moment

And the ultimate, the big one:

A woman falling over, usually in front of the guy she likes. I don't know what it is about this one, but no matter how many romantic films I go to with Rachel, the biggest laugh always happens when the woman falls over. I believe this is because falling over in public is considered the most mortifying of all embarrassments that could possibly happen to a woman.

Anyway, that's my observations. What a Girl Wants itself only gets a 2 1/2 out of 5 from me, because it's pretty typical. But of course, I'm a guy, so my vote probably doesn't count.

Danny Deckchair

2005-03-30T14:13:00.000+10:00

I'm a little bit behind on my reviewing here, so I may have to do some shorter reviews . . . this could be difficult.

I'll start with Danny Deckchair, which I saw with Rachel on DVD, because she wanted to see a girly, romantic movie . . .

This is an Australian picture based on the urban legend of the guy who strapped helium balloons to a couch and flew up into the air. This particular version starts in Earlwood (not too far from where I live, actually) and stars Rhys Ifans (the unforgettable Welshman from Notting Hill), doing a quite credible Aussie accent as, Danny, a construction worker. He's looking forward to a camping holiday, but his social climbing girlfriend has other plans; she's planning a fling with a TV reporter.

So Danny's holiday turns into a barbecue, where he and his mates tie balloons to a deckchair and he accidentally ends up floating off into the distance. He ends up in a little country town up in the northern part of NSW, where he turns the town around and starts a romance with the town parking cop, played by Miranda Otto.

As far as romantic comedies go, this one is a little bit quirky and has a nice heart, but it's not outstandingly different from any other Aussie romantic comedies. What does make this film stand out, though, in my mind, is the finger it points at Sydney and the way this city can crush individuality.

Danny, brimming with ideas and creativity - an original thinker, if you like - feels weird and out of place in Sydney. In the country, however, he is appreciated for who he is and being different.
And if you've lived here, let me tell you, this is the true state of affairs. There are many Sydney-siders whose sole concern is being seen with the right people, in the right part of town, and doing the right things. Anybody a little bit different can feel pretty out of it. So, to the makers of Danny Deckchair, I thank you for your little stab at this state of affairs. 3 1/2 out of 5.

Maybe Baby

2005-03-22T13:18:00.000+11:00

To really be able to review this film properly, I feel that I probably need to express my opinion on sex in movies, and how a Christian should approach this.

In a lot of Christian circles, any references to sex of any kind in movies is considered bad. It is put into the same category as having swearing in movies. Just plain wrong. For some reason, violence has not been put into the same category. So if you wander around Koorong Books and look at the Christian DVDs for offer, you will find that they contain absolutely no sex or swearing but they will often be rated M for violence. (Or rated MA, in the case of the extremely graphic Passion of the Christ.)

But sex has long been a bugbear. My approach at the moment is this (and it's something I'm still continuing to give thought to): I don't believe anywhere in the Bible that sex became taboo to talk about. I think there's enough evidence, certainly in the Old Testament, that they were actually a bit more graphic and honest in their talk about sex than Christians are nowadays.

So my approach at the moment is that I won't automatically reject a film just because it talks about sex or has sex in it. However, that said, I believe Christians should be absolutely clear what message Hollywood is giving about sex:

1. Hollywood says that promiscuous sex is a good thing. Sleeping around is considered quite a normal thing in Hollywood films. The only time it is portrayed as a bad thing is when couples are in a relationship, and one cheats on the other. Even then, if one person in the relationship is portrayed as problematic (an abusive spouse, a loser boyfriend or girlfriend, etc.) then the cheating is usually portrayed as a good thing. For this reason, I have real issues with a lot of teen comedies like American Pie, and parts of Love Actually.

2. Hollywood says that if two people are in love, they should have sex straight away. When you watch a typical film where boy meets girl, the unspoken question in the audience's mind is, "How long before they have sex?" It's just a given. The problem with this is that if you watch it long enough, you will believe it too. For this reason, I have real issues with most films but there's not too much that can be done about it, unless we see a major shift in the thinking of our culture.

3. The third thing to be aware of is that if you watch enough sexual images, you will be affected by them. The only way to deal with this is to be honest with yourself. I'm not saying avoid all sex in movies, but if a motivating factor in you watching a movie is knowing that you will see sex in it, then DON'T WATCH THE MOVIE. Sure, you may not be a hit when you're talking with other people about movies, but you can't lie to yourself about this one. For some people, this may mean watching very few movies. If you're brave and honest enough to do this, I respect you.

And don't make stupid excuses either. When I was younger and more immature, I watched a few films I shouldn't have by telling little lies to myself such as, "But it got really good reviews." Or, "It's supposed to be really well-made." Watch yourself. It doesn't have to be in the porn section to be a dangerous temptation.

This is a rather superficial look at this issue, but I'm constrained by space.

So saying, I come to my review of Maybe Baby, which is rather unusual because it deals with a married couple (Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson) and their troubles to conceive a child. It is directed by comedian and author Ben Elton.

What makes this film so memorable is that Ben Elton and his wife actually had trouble conceivingand went on to the IVF program. Now anyone who's had anything to do with IVF will tell you this is a humiliating, expensive and often traumatic time. You would have to have a good sense of humour to survive the whole thing.

Which is exactly what Elton has done. His way of dealing with the ordeal is to turn it into a fictional comedy. This is an interesting trademark of British comedy, that they can find a laugh in a situation that would otherwise be quite sad or stressful. It is quite different from American comedy, which tends to create unrealistic and fanciful scenarios for their characters. Their comedy is an escape from real life, but British comedy is a laugh at real life.

So, for that reason, and also for its positive view of marriage, I found Maybe Baby both amusing and touching. However, as to be expected on a movie dealing with a couple trying to conceive, the sex is quite prominent. So for that reason, I am hesitant to give a glowing recommendation for this film to Christians, and I highly advise that anybody watching the film exercise some discretion and thought before deciding whether to watch it. 4 out of 5.

The Aviator

2005-03-18T09:31:00.000+11:00

I'll generally come out of the woodwork for a Martin Scorsese picture just because the man is a master of visual story-telling. No matter what kind of story he's telling, the camera angles will always be interesting, and the editing will be fast and furious. It's the kind of eye candy that you would only find in a blockbuster action film, but used in a drama instead.

However, another trademark is that I never care about his characters. They'll often be violent, unpleasant people that you really wouldn't want to spend time with. The only character that I really sympathised with was the Dalai Lama from Kundun. But in all his other films, you watch the characters, but you don't empathise with them.

The Aviator is no exception to this. We watch the rise of Howard Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), the eccentric millionaire. His passions were planes and movies, and he really didn't seem to mind how much money he spent to achieve his aims. The first half hour of the movie (which is nearly three hours long) deals with how Howard made Hell's Angels, a WWI plane epic. He tried to get more cameras and more planes than Hollywood had ever used before, and then after two years putting it together, went back and reshot the whole thing to make it a sound picture. (It was in the late 20s when sound was only just coming in.)

We also see his affairs with many of the famous actresses of the time (most notably Katherine Hepburn, played by a scarily accurate Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (played by Kate Beckinsale). In addition, he was developing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder at this time, and his obsession with germs and cleanliness was starting to cripple him.

All of this is portrayed in quite a strong performance by Leo (who, now that he has outgrown his teen pin-up stage, is starting to prove that he always was a good actor), who manages to run through all the various faces of Howard, from the ladies' man to the businessman to the plane fanatic to the obsessed man desperately scrubbing his hands clean in a bathroom.

Also of note is the colour scheme. They were trying to keep with the colour films of the period, and so the first hour of the film is shot in the old colour system they used which couldn't show greens properly. (They all look blue.) It's not until an hour in when Howard visits the Hepburn family home, that we see green colour for the first time.

As I said, the whole package is slick but, unfortunately, we just don't connect with the characters that much. But where the film really triumphs (depending on your political point of view) is in its absolutely stunning defence of free market economics. The film portrays Hughes' struggles with the American government who were going to put a law in place to make an airline monopoly overseas. Only one airline would have been allowed to fly overseas, and that would have been Pan Am (the head of Pan Am is played quite entertainingly by Alec Baldwin). Hughes was building an airfleet of his own (TWA), and he would have been crippled by this law.

The question asked is: If a man is prepared to pour millions of his own money into a business, shouldn't he be able to enjoy the rewards, unhampered by the government? The movie (and capitalists worldwide) answer this question with a resounding "Yes!" All in all, The Aviator is an interesting little part of the story of the American Dream. 4 out of 5.

P.S. My favourite moment is when Errol Flynn, the famous swashbuckling actor, (played in a cameo by a famous English actor) gets in a fight at a restaurant. Someone calls him British and he is heard yelling, "I'm from Tasmania!"

The Butterfly Effect

2005-03-18T09:29:00.000+11:00

Saw this on DVD. Ashton Kutcher stars as a young man who has memory blackouts at particularly traumatic periods in his childhood. However, he keeps a journal of everything he can remember. In his early 20s, while re-reading his journal, he finds himself back at the event that he can't remember.

He soon learns that he can change what happens back at these points in time, and so he attempts, by doing things slightly differently each time, to change the future. I say each time, because the number of ways that things can go wrong is quite spectacular in this film . . . (and sometimes rather far-fetched).

Overall, the film is brilliant constructed and cleverly put together, but be warned: the imagery and situations this film puts forward are quite disturbing in places and, I would argue, the overall philosophy (especially the ending) is the exact opposite of a Christian worldview. We believe God has a plan for all of us and he is working His purposes out. The Butterfly Effect" (named for chaos theory, which suggests that a butterfly flapping its wings could have a huge impact on the world) puts forward the theory that life is controlled by the small and random things, and that sometimes the way God set things up is not really the way they should be.

So with that in mind, and a strong reminder about the MA warning, you may well enjoy the ride. 4 out of 5.

Constantine

2005-03-10T17:31:00.000+11:00

I believe it was the first Spiderman movie which carried that immortal line: "Crap. Crap. Double crap!" For some reason, this line came to mind as I exited the theatre after watching Constantine.

First of all, the good bit:

Keanu. The man is cool. He just wanders around, chain smoking and generally looking very cool. There was a time when we liked our movie heroes to look tall, rugged and perfect. But now we kind of like them dark, sombre and flawed. And Keanu's not too bad at that. Granted, it's still a pretty cardboard character he has to play here, but that's probably not his fault.
Now, on to the bad bits.

Crap. The characters, aside from Keanu, range from irritating to unlikeable to plain boring. Or weird. I'd like to see the original comic book to know what they were trying to achieve here.

Crap. The theology is all over the shop. Granted it wasn't written by theologians, nor was I expecting it to be, but this was really, really silly. It was like a cynical version of The Exorcist. At least in The Exorcist, the religion was taken fairly seriously, but in this movie, we have a hero who is a cynical, anti-religious guy who just casts out demons because he knows how to. It does raise the interesting question, though, which I'd love to know an answer for: If suicide really is a mortal sin, what happens it someone attempts suicide but revives (like Constantine here)? Are they really still going to hell even if they later change their mind? Who came up with that idea??

Anyway, the whole system of half-breed angels and demons, and the complete absence of God, combined with a corny appearance by Satan just made the whole thing laughable. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except the movie took everything so seriously! (Except for Satan, who seemed to be having fun.)

Double Crap. The production values. The main reason I went to see this film was to get some cool special effects and some awesome action. Well, I got let down big time here. Where do I start? There was very little in the way of action (the only cool bit was the knuckle dusters), the special effects, all things considered, were pretty ordinary. Hell looking like Florida? Who's idea was that?? And costumes . . . Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz only had one set of clothes which they wore for the entire movie. Did they have budget cuts or something??

I'm sure there'll be those that disagree with me, but I'm giving this baby 2 out of 5.

Beethoven's World

2005-03-09T21:22:00.000+11:00

This is probably one of the most exhausting concerts I have ever been to, and it was designed to be. Back in 1808, Beethoven put on a huge four-hour concert where he premiered two new symphonies, a new piano concerto, plus several other pieces, and it's gone into classical music history.

Sydney Symphony, under the baton of their new conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti, decided to stage a recreation of that concert. At first, I thought they might be able to pull it off in less time than it took Beethoven, but no, it actually took closer to five hours . . .

The verdict? Here we go . . .

At 7.00 p.m., we started with Beethoven's sixth symphony. Even though this concert originally premiered the fifth and sixth symphony, because Beethoven composed them both at the same time, this one was originally the number 5, which is why it's first . . . I've probably just confused you, haven't I?

Whatever . . . this is Beethoven's pastoral symphony, which is probably the easiest of all Beethoven symphonies to get and is as close to easy-listening as you can get with Beethoven. It consists of five movements all describing feelings about being in the country, and you can quite clearly hear bird noises in some movements, or village bands in the others. The only noisy part (and probably one of the most brilliant things Beethoven wrote) is the summer storm which sweeps through for the fourth movement. It is THE best musical depiction of a thunderstorm ever. Overall, the entire symphony was a nice 45-minute opening to the concert, but we knew the good stuff was coming later.

However, first was a 50-minute intermission, where those people with $20 to spare had pre-purchased a box of food which they sat around eating. I ate peanut butter sandwiches especially prepared for the occasion. We were also watching the massive electrical storm outside, which made Beethoven's seem rather pathetic by comparison . . . (sorry, Ludwig, but this was awesome).

Then it was back in for Part II of the concert. We started with a concert aria called "Ah, Perfido". The reason it was called a concert aria was because it's a solo for soprano, but it's not from any particular opera. However, it could have been from any old opera. It went for about 10 minutes, and started with this chick calling down curses on the man who had spurned her. However, by the end, she was pleading with him not to leave her because she would die without him . . . (I'll make no further comment about the lyrics.) The soprano herself was probably a bit quiet, but she's only 25, so it was a bit of a practice run for her. I could hear her okay because I was in the front row, but it must have been harder for people in the back of the concert hall.

Then, out came the Philharmonia Choirs and they sang the Gloria from Beethoven's Mass in C. This was all in Latin, and quite religious, so it was quite a break from the rest of the concert. But, hey, it was Beethoven's program, not mine. It was good choir stuff, but his Mass in C isn't quite as spectacular and awe-inspiring as the Missa Solemnis (which I've reviewed elsewhere on this site), so it wasn't the highlight of the night.

Then on came the 73-year-old pianist to play Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4. You might have already read my comments on rubato on the casadeamor page. Well, he might have been doing it here, but it's not so bad in a concerto, because really the whole orchestra is playing second fiddle to the piano. Now, I'm not sure what it is, but there's something totally beautiful about a piano backed up by an orchestra. The piano is versatile enough to really play stuff all on its own, but with an orchestra, it just adds a beautiful richness to it. So this was a pretty good part of the concert.

Then we had a 20-minute intermission.

And then WHAM!! Beethoven's 5th. Now, much as this is a classic, I've always been a bit over the old 5th. Da-da-da-dum and all that. Heard it all before. Boring.

However, not heard live by Gianluigi Gelmetti. For a full half hour, the whole room just sat amazed as the Sydney Symphony got faster and faster, and louder and louder. I was in the front row and you could see the conductor and the orchestra and by the last movement, they were playing like there was no tomorrow. (And at 10.30 at night after several hours already, we weren't that far away from tomorrow.) By the time he'd finished, Gianluigi looked about ready to pass out, and half the audience were on their feet for a standing ovation. It was awesome, awesome Beethoven and the highlight of the whole night.

Next was the Sanctus from the Mass in C with the choir again. It was nice, but we were really still buzzing from the 5th to pay any attention.

Then, finally, the choral fantasia. If you've never heard this piece, it is an absolute ripper of a Beethoven piece. A lone piano plays for about 5 minutes. Then quietly the rest of the orchestra slink in. Before you know it, you're hearing one of the catchiest tunes Beethoven ever wrote (probably second only to the "Ode to Joy"). Then for the next 10 minutes, it's glorious piano and orchestra music. And then, for the big finale, the choir comes in singing the diabolically catchy tune and the whole piece ends in a rather rousing manner, and you find yourself humming the tune for the rest of the week.

Well, normally. In this case, it was a bit of a disappointment, partly because I think the pianist lost the plot and the choir seemed a bit quiet (I've found that in the opera house). But it was mainly because of the pianist. A pity. It's a great piece.

So all in all, the whole evening was very memorable (if for no other reason than the 5th), but we were all very relieved when it ended at 11.40 p.m.).

Brush with Fame: While leaving the cloaking desk at the Opera House, I came within an inch of Geoffrey Rush. Who knew that he was a Beethoven fan? The man has just gone up in my estimation . . .

Friday Night Lights

2005-03-01T14:51:00.000+11:00

I first heard about this film last Thursday. I was walking to work and passed a poster that showed three young guys (late teens) in black and white. That was about it. It had some slogan about winning being the only thing, and a line saying that it was by the makers of 8 Mile.

I immediately wrote it off as another teen culture/rap movie, only this time with an unknown bunch of teenagers rather than Eminem. (Billy Bob Thornton was mentioned on the poster, but its typical for Hollywood to put a big star in a small part and fill the movie with unknowns.) Having avoided 8 Mile precisely because I didn't want to see a teen culture/rap movie, I wrote Friday Night Lights off as being crap.

However, a couple of hours later at work, I got an email from Greater Union inviting me to go in a competition to see a special preview screening of Friday Night Lights. It turns out, despite what the poster shows, that the movie is about an American high school football team in 1988. Now, while I hate teen culture/rap movies, I actually hate sports movies worse.

So I ummed and ahhed for a bit about whether to enter the competition to see the screening (which was going to be a Q & A with the director and one of the stars) and finally decided to go for it. (A free movie is a free movie.) I found out the next day that I'd won and I took Rach to see it last night (Monday).

I have not changed my opinion on a movie quite so dramatically as on this one. Within five minutes, I was hooked. Far from being your normal cliched sports film, Friday Night Lights shows a small town in Texas where all the attention is focused on the Permian Panthers, the local high school football team. It's difficult to appreciate here in Australia, but over there, certainly in this story, we have a bunch of 16 or 17-year-olds who have an incredible pressure not to lose.

And that's what got me hooked into the story. In a normal sports movie, we are used to seeing the underdogs (who are always hopeless, let's face it) get inspired and get disciplined and then they go out and win. This is something else entirely. Here we have a bunch of young guys who must not lose. From one boy whose alcoholic father thinks nothing of chewing him out over his playing in the middle of practice, to all the townsfolk constantly saying, "You're going to win State [the State final], aren't you?" It's beyond encouragement and discipline. It's dangerous perfectionism of the highest order.

On top of that, we realise that for a lot of these guys, life holds nothing for them except football. They're not doing well at school, and this is their final year coming up. So if they don't succeed at football, they've got nothing else to fall back on. You could literally feel the pressure these boys were under.

The cast were all excellent. This is probably the best acting job from Billy Bob Thornton I've ever seen (not that I've ever seen him do a bad acting job). And the music (especially in the film's climactic moments) is awesome. The whole film moved me beyond anything I was expecting.

This is, without a doubt, the best movie I've seen all year (despite their marketing guys' best attempts to convince me otherwise) and everything else I watch this year is going to have to try damn hard to compete with it. 5 out of 5.

Bride and Prejudice

2005-03-01T11:44:00.000+11:00

Took Rachel to see this one on the weekend. By the director of Bend It Like Beckham, this film is a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but done as a Bollywood film. It's rather a cute mix.

For those of you who don't know the story, the original told the story of the Bennett sisters, and their search for husbands. The main romance was between the second-oldest, Lizzie, and the (at first glance) snobby Mr Darcy. It was also an interesting social commentary, because the Bennets were ordinary middle-class folk, while Mr Darcy was a wealthy aristocrat.

In this new version, replace middle-class with "Eastern" and upper-class with "Western" and that's what this film is about. We have the Bakshi family, who's second daughter Lalita, finds herself infuriated by William Darcy, a wealthy young American hotel magnate.

It sticks fairly closely to the Austen story, so even though the settings were completely new, I could still say, "Ah, yes, that's this bit," etc. Of course, there are the usual Bollywood song and dance routines, which give the film it's Indian flavour. Overall, the acting and script is a little bit ho-hum (compared with Jane Austen's quite witty original dialogue), but the colour and enthusiasm this film has more than make up for it.

Overall, this is an average romantic comedy made better by its dash of spice. 3 1/2 out of 5.

Soundtracks: The Civil War

2005-02-23T16:52:00.000+11:00

The Civil War is one of the most famous war documentaries ever made. Made in the early 90s, it pre-dates the more modern trend in documentaries to have re-enactments, computer animation, and other exciting bells and whistles. Instead, it opts for the rather more low-key approach of just showing photographs of the era.

They had thousands and thousands of photographs, and over the top of that they ran a mixture of narration (from an unseen David McCullough) and excerpts from diaries and letters of famous and not-so-famous people of the time read by different actors. (There were actually some big names in there such as Morgan Freeman.)

The overall effect is not to portray the war so much in terms of guns and action, but instead of people and their reactions to it. As such, the overall effect is quite sad. A lot of the music reflects this. While there are famous tunes played by brass bands, etc., there are also a fair mixture of tunes played quietly and reflectively on piano or guitar. These, while very nice, are probably not the greatest reason to rush out and get this CD.

No, the highlight of this CD (and the musical highlight of the series) is the opening theme music, the "Ashokan Farewell". This piece for a couple of fiddles and a guitar starts with a lone violin playing a melancholy but folky piece. However, as the theme keeps repeating and other instruments are introduced in and the melody is varied around between instruments, it grows in power. The overall effect of this one piece of music is to break your heart. It was a perfect theme for the series, and a beautiful piece of music. If you've seen the series, you'll know exactly what I mean.

Martin Chuzzlewit

2005-02-22T11:13:00.000+11:00

This is a six-hour BBC miniseries of a Charles Dickens novel. MC is probably one of the more obscure Dickens novels, and I certainly didn't know much about it before seeing this TV adaptation back in 1996. However, the way it is done here, the story is HILARIOUS.

The story concerns an old man called Martin Chuzzlewit, who is very wealthy and suspicious of everyone who befriends him, thinking that they are only out to get his money. Which is not actually too far from the truth, when you meet his different relatives in this story. Dickens designed the Chuzzlewit family and relatives to selfishness in all its different forms, so we have a wide range of characters from the hilariously evil Jonas Chuzzlewit, to the amazingly hypocritical Mr Pecksniff (this was where I first learned the name of Tom Wilkinson as being an actor to watch out for).

In true Dickens fashion, there is a myriad of subplots, over-the-top characters, and the good guys go through hell and back before poetic justice is meted out. But it's all quite an enjoyable romp, once you get used to the dialogue. While I couldn't tell you exactly what is funny about it, I find myself laughing at the same scenes every time I watch it. If you like Dickens, or just want to see a superior costume drama, this is the one for you. 5 out of 5.

JFK

2005-02-22T11:10:00.000+11:00

This movie is probably one of the most well-constructed pieces of propaganda since the Ku Klux Klan rode to the rescue in Birth of a Nation back in 1915. If you haven't heard of JFK, Oliver Stone's epic 1991 film stars Kevin Costner as New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, who starts to investigate the Kennedy assassination three years after the event. The evidence that he finds leads him to suspect that the simple explanation - Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy - is too simple, and that there is a conspiracy afoot.

The amazing thing about this film is that, while it runs for 3 1/4 hours, it has almost no plot. It mainly consists of Garrison or his staff interviewing various people. So for almost the entire running time, you are being presented with information. It is sensory overload, because every interview with a character is accompanied by flashbacks, reconstructions, images, black and white footage, 16mm colour footage, fancy cuts and editing, etc. It is a barrage of images and dialogue.

The only pauses (which we need just to catch our breath from the information that is on offer) are when Garrison's wife, played by Sissy Spacek, gets angry with him for not spending enough time with the kids. Garrison will then rant back about the truth, what kind of country will our kids grow up in, etc. etc. and then we're back into it again.

But we realise by the end of the film that obsessed as Garrison is with JFK, Oliver Stone is even more obsessed. Despite the fact that there are plenty of websites out there debunking his material, he seriously believes the theory he is putting forward. And, if you don't know any better, during the time you are watching it, you will believe as well. It is brilliantly, brilliantly constructed. This is a cinema ARGUMENT and it argues hard. Which could be a little worrying if we're all taking our history from the movies.

Also fun, of course, are the myriad of different actors - everybody from Donald Sutherland through to Joe Pesci is in this movie, so it's always interesting to see who you will spot next.
4 1/2 out of 5.

Soundtracks: Barry Lyndon

2005-02-18T09:49:00.000+11:00

Barry Lyndon was made in the early 70s by the famous film director Stanley Kubrick. It's probably become his most obscure film. Only film buffs will have heard of it and, even then, it's never been quite popular enough to make them all watch it. (Unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, etc. which have all become famous classics.)

The film is an 18th century costume drama about the rise and fall of a young Irish guy named Redmond Barry. We watch him start out as a farm boy, get into the army, work his way up to the European aristocracy and then fall mercilessly. (He did partly deserve it, but I won't give away too much of the film.)

What I always loved about this film, right from the very first time I saw it, was the clockwork precision of the whole thing, combined with a very low-key, almost minimalist approach. Normally when you make a costume drama, the key word is "melodrama". Everything's very over-the-top and everyone talks about their emotions. Not here. You can tell right from the opening shot, where you see, in the distance, two men in a field fighting a duel. One pulls the trigger and the other falls dead. A rather blase voice-over narrator tells us that Redmond's father died in a duel "over the sale of some horses".

Anyway, the soundtrack won an Academy Award, and rightly so. It's a mixture of carefully constructed pieces from the period. Because the film has such a deliberate pace with regulated timing, most of the music is slow, deliberate and with a regular beat. Apart from the main theme (a Sarabande by Handel), the movie starts with traditional Irish music in the early scenes of the film, more military style music (think fife and drums) as Barry works his way up through the army and, by the time he hits high society, we're talking Mozart, Schubert, Bach and all the other orchestral classics. So you can hear his social status in the music being played.

The great thing about this movie is that it avoids classical music cliches. One of my pet hates is when somebody decides to do a costume drama movie set in an old period, and so picks the most obvious classical piece available. ("Oh, quick, it's set in the 1800s. Let's put in the Moonlight Sonata!")

How is anybody supposed to learn to appreciate any new music if we keep listening to the same five pieces? Honestly! Anyway, Kubrick didn't do that. Apparently, he listened to thousands of records to find the right pieces for the film. So most of the pieces would have been fairly obscure when he used them, but have now gone on to become famous. (The two most famous are the Handel Sarabande for the main theme, and the slow movement from one of Schubert's Piano Trios which is used from about the middle of the film onwards. I also really love the Cavatina from Paisiello's The Barber of Seville, which appears a couple of times as well.)

If you like classical soundtracks, this is one of the best.

The New Relentless Pursuit Series - Soundtracks

2005-02-18T09:48:00.000+11:00

G'day everyone,

After (slowly) progressing through the complete symphonies of Mahler, I'm now going to turn to something that perhaps you'll be more familiar with: soundtracks. It's not such a logical break as it might seem, however, because I believe that soundtracks was where classical music really headed.

After the likes of Mahler, who took orchestral emotion to new heights, orchestral music in the concert halls started going down the weird direction of Schoenberg and others of the 20th century music style. It was harsh on the ears, often cold and unemotional and generally not that much fun to listen to (forgive me, 20th century music fans).

However, emotion and melody is exactly what films needed to enhance the images on the screens (especially in the silent film era), so the idea of film music backing up the images is an artform that has continued and developed to this day. I think a lot of the old classical masters like Wagner, Beethoven and Mahler would love some of our soundtracks. They'd probably hate some of them, too, but that's a different issue.

I was going to compile a list of my top 10 soundtracks, but I ended up with a list of over 20. So I'll review them over the next few weeks. This won't be comprehensive of all the soundtracks I own, but it'll give you an idea of what I like in soundtracks, and why I think these ones are worth a listen.

It's kind of done in order of favourites, but I can't put a strict number on it like Mahler symphonies, because these soundtracks vary considerably in content. It's more the case that one will become a favourite for a while, I'll listen to it for weeks, then put it aside for a few years, and then "rediscover it".

Also, most of the following soundtracks are "score" soundtracks with instrumental backing rather than "song" soundtracks. This is not because I haven't listened to any with songs: but, in my books, I generally find a pop song never competes with a full orchestra for emotion. But we'll see how it goes. On to the first review . . .

Relentless Pursuit: Mahler's Symphony No 2

2005-02-16T16:57:00.000+11:00

Okay, all you people out there just glancing at this page. This is the big one you've all been waiting for. This is . . .

THE GREATEST PIECE OF MUSIC IN THE WORLD

I'm usually not one to get too worked up about anything, but within a few days of first hearing this piece, it absolutely rocketed up the list to be my favourite piece of music of all time. I don't listen to it every day like I used to, but I'm still a huge fan.

I won't go in-depth into the story of the symphony, fascinating as it is. But the rough version is that Mahler had a bad dream where he saw himself laid out on a funeral bier, surrounded by flowers. So he wrote a piece of music called "Funeral Rites" which turned into the first movement of the symphony. It's 20 minutes long and is one of the most devastating pieces of music ever written. By the end of it, you feel morbid and miserable . . .

So the story goes, Mahler played this to Hans von Bulow, a famous conductor of the time, who told him that it was crap and not real music. (Actually, he phrased it more nicely, but anyway.) So Mahler took that a bit badly and never quite knew how to finish off the symphony, though he was playing with more movements.

But it was the elusive last movement that evaded him. How do you finish off a symphony that starts so darkly?

And then, believe it or not, von Bulow unwittingly provided the solution. By dying. Mahler was at his funeral, and a little boys choir got up to sing a chorale called "Aufersteh'n" or "Resurrection". Mahler says that like a thunderclap, he had the end of the symphony in his head. It was going to end with a choir, and they were going to be singing that hymn.

So he constructed a 35-minute last movement (now making the whole symphony an hour and 20 minutes long). In that last movement, using a huge orchestra, Mahler describes the resurrection of mankind. We hear the trumpets sounding from the four corners of the concert hall, sounding like the last trumpets. We hear the ground shake and rip open, and we hear the dead march forth.

And then . . . we hear a bird. A lone flute fluttering above the rest of the orchestra. Where do we go from here?

Well, if you were Christian, you would have the last judgement. But Mahler didn't like that idea, so his choir comes in and starts singing about how we can all be resurrected and go to God.

It's quite a humanistic idea, and while I have to reject it theologically, the music . . .

how can I describe such music? At the world premiere, when Mahler first conducted it, the audience didn't know what had hit them. Grown men were weeping, youths were embracing each other.

It is the most beautiful, heavenly, majestic, stirring, emotional music I have ever heard. Especially the way it follows on from the rest of the symphony. The first movement has wound us up like a spring and tensed us up, and now all of that is released in glorious waves of sound at the end.

Hear it. Even if it's only once in your lifetime, hear it. You may not like it. It may be too emotional. But this is genius and beauty of the highest order.

As I said, it's the greatest piece of music in the world.

Relentless Pursuit: Mahler Symphony No 3

2005-02-11T10:42:00.000+11:00

And, because we haven't had anything on these for a while, I'm back with the (in my opinion) second-greatest Mahler symphony of all time.

The No 3 is in the Guiness Book of World Records as being the longest symphony of all time, clocking in at an hour and 40 minutes. However, that's okay, because there's so much variety and interesting stuff going on here, that you'll forgive it.

This symphony is Mahler's dedication to nature, so each movement is a step up the chain of nature. The first movement is all about "What the Rocks and Mountains Told Me", the second movement is "What the flowers told me", third is "What the Animals Told Me", fourth is "What Man Told Me", fifth is "What the Angels told me", sixth and final is "What Love Told me".
A quick run-through:

Movement 1: This goes for just over half an hour and contrasts a harsh, howling trombone melody (meant to represent winter, or perhaps nature in its primitive form) with summer (represented by an awesome, awesome marching tune). It's all about how summer triumps over winter and the symphony ends with summer marching in. It's harsh listening to start with, but by the end of the movement, everyone in the concert hall has bright eyes. We're keen now.

Movement 2: The flower movement only goes for 10 minutes and describes with a much smaller group of instruments the sound of flowers. It gets a bit crazy in there (these are flowers being blown by a stiff breeze), but it's very light and beautiful.

Movement 3: The animals movement is amazing, going for 15 minutes, and featuring some very jaunty stuff from the animals. (It's actually based on a folksong about a cuckoo bird.) But most amazing of all is halfway through the movement, you hear, very distantly and faintly, a posthorn (like a little miniature horn) playing a beautiful horn call in the distance (I heard it live at Town Hall and he was standing in the corridor outside the upper balcony, and the sound kind of drifted in from the distance. It's really, really cool.

Movement 4: What man told me goes for 10 minutes and is sung by an alto. It's a very slow, quiet piece with words by Nietsche from memory about how deep the world is and stuff like that. I've never quite been a fan of this movement, but it does make a great contrast to what goes before and what comes ahead in this symphony.

Movement 5: The angels movement goes for less than 5 minutes, but, features a childrens' choir, a ladies' choir and the alto again, singing a little folksong about angels in heaven, etc. Very cute.

Movement 6: The love movement. When Mahler talks about "love", he's not so much talking about the mushy feeling as talking about God. This movement goes for over 25 minutes, but it is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful pieces of music ever written. It's very, very slow but it builds up and up until it ends with one of the most magnificent endings ever written for orchestra.

I don't think anybody's ever used it in a movie, but if I ever make a movie, I would love to be able to use the end of this symphony as part of the soundtrack.

All in all, this is one of the all-time masterpieces of orchestral music. Considering its length, you might want to work your way up to it first, but it'll be worth it once you get here.

Ray: Part II

2005-02-09T13:56:00.000+11:00

I should add, which I forgot to put in the review, that the most amazing thing about the film was the sound engineering. (Well, I thought it was amazing.) All of the songs on this movie are actually performed by Ray Charles, some of them from recordings that are 40 years old.

However, the actors are all dubbed singing along to these and there is absolutely no change in sound quality. So it's not like Ray opens his mouth to sing and an old 40-year-old crackly recording comes out. It's really, really smooth. I'd be keen to find out just how they did this part of the movie.

Ray

2005-02-09T07:37:00.000+11:00

I first remember being keen on Ray Charles when I saw a Japanese anime called Metropolis a couple of years ago. As the film climaxed, they played his song, "I Can't Stop Loving You". It was one of the most amazing combinations of music and pictures I've ever seen (and heard).

So I bought a Best Of album afterwards, and heard more of his stuff. It was obviously a genuine Best Of album because I recognised at least half of the songs in this movie.

So how is the movie? Good points: if you like Ray's music, it's all here. The filmmakers have allowed plenty of time for all his songs to be heard, and if you're not tapping your toes to at least one of them, there's probably something wrong with you. Also, Jamie Foxx's acting job is amazing. You can almost believe it's Ray Charles. I think it's because you can't see his eyes. (They're either closed or he wear the famous sunglasses.)

Also fascinating is the period. Ray Charles was becoming a hit at a time when black people still had to ride in their own sections of public transport. A time when, in some venues, black people would not be allowed to hear him. To watch a blind, black man ride through all of this and come out on top is amazing.

However, on the downside, he was a heroin addict and quite a womaniser. The heroin is partly explained by an early childhood tragedy, which he keeps trying to forget. The womanising . . . well, he just seems to have not cared that much. I wasn't so keen on that. (Right at the end of the end credits, a note said that Ray has 12 children, and a large number of grand and great-grandchildren, so believe me, he got around . . .)

All in all, for great acting, and great music (if you like that kind of thing), it's worth a look. But it's a warts and all picture. Also, 2 and a half hours might be a bit of a slog for some people, especially considering the film is only about music. 4 out of 5.

Bugs Bunny on Broadway

2005-02-03T10:16:00.000+11:00

Went to see this show with Rach last night. It was my favourite combination: pictures and music. This show had some of the best Bugs Bunny cartoons projected on a big screen and accompanied by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the Opera House. Why I loved this show so much is that most of the cartoons were selected based on their music. So cartoons such as The Rabbit of Seville, That's Opera, Doc and Baton Bunny were shown which all have actually quite clever and sophisticated plays on music.

I felt sorry for all the kids in the audience at the beginning, because the conductor (american George Daugherty) came out and kicked off the evening by playing The Flying Dutchman overture on the orchestra before the cartoons started. Now, that overture goes for 10 minutes plus, and you could hear all round the theatre parents whispering to their children (and children whispering back) that the cartoons would start soon and that they should sit still and be quiet.
However, once the cartoons kicked off, we were all in the mood. They ran Baton Bunny first, which featured Bugs Bunny conducting a piece of music called Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna. Nearly the whole cartoon consists of watching Bugs conduct this piece with all manner of hilarious gestures (not to mention his constant battle with his cuffs and a fly). So to watch it with a whole orchestra made it look exactly as if Bugs were conducting the Sydney Symphony. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

On the whole, while some cartoons were better than others, it was a great night out. The only cartoon I would have liked to have seen added was one I saw a long time ago about the three little pigs set to the music of Brahms Waltzes.

True Lies

2005-02-03T10:15:00.000+11:00

As I stated on the main page, I watched this on telly at the motel in Mansfield (it was either that or The Replacements). This was one of those films that I remember distinctly when it came out because everyone I knew went to see it. I avoided it because I hated big, dumb action films.

Well, lo and behold, watching it after all these years, it IS a big, dumb action film. (Well, let's face it, it does have Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, who is Mr Big Dumb Action Film himself.)

I remember at the time, it was the most expensive film ever made, and it does show with lots of things being blown up. What saves the film is the cute sense of humour, and the awesome finale involving a fighter jet and a crane that just really works on my fear of heights. 2 1/2 out of 5.

Oliver Twist

2005-01-31T13:46:00.000+11:00

Of all Charles Dickens' books, apart from perhaps A Christmas Carol, this is his most famous. This could well be because it has inspired several movies, and a musical (which was also made into a movie). My introduction to the story was through the latter. I think I first saw Oliver! on television a good 10 or 15 years ago, and quite liked the story, however, when I read the book, I realised how greatly simplified the musical was compared to the movie.

So finally I got to see the earlier black-and-white film of Oliver Twist, directed by David Lean (famous for such masterworks as Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago). At just under two hours, this movie too is a slimmed-down version of the book, but every line of dialogue either comes straight from Dickens or sounds as if it does.

But what is most amazing about this film is the atmosphere. Oliver! turned the story into a light and fluffy sing-a-long, which kind of took the edge off the ending a little bit. But this movie is dark and gritty right from the very start. This is Oliver Twist done film-noir style. Every scene is lit by strange twisting shadows. Characters look over-the-top and sinister, which is kind of what you want in a Dickens story.

Lean tries to tell the story with as little dialogue as possible, offering some stunning scenes of visual power with almost no dialogue. My favourites:

1) The opening scene of a pregnant woman struggling through a violent thunderstorm to get to a workhouse to have her baby.

2) The scene in the pub where the thief, Nancy, spies upon Fagin and hears of his plot to keep Oliver away from his real relatives. As he leaves the pub, Fagin gets tipped off by the pub owner that he has been overheard. As he walks out the door, he turns to Nancy and tips his broad-brimmed hat. No dialogue passes between them, but his face says clearly that he knows she will betray him. Her nervous face shows that she knows he will get his revenge and she is in danger. This, of course, sets the story up brilliantly for what happens later.

3) Bill Sikes' attack on Nancy

Also, I'd be keen to hear the soundtrack played with a modern orchestra, because it sounded kind of interesting (it actually used a piano for some of the themes, which is unusual for old soundtracks). However, because of the old mono sound, I find most old soundtracks start to sound mostly the same after a while.

Overall, this is probably not the kind of film you're going to watch unless you're into Charles Dickens, black-and-white films or David Lean, but it's well worth a look sometime in your lifetime. 4 1/2 out of 5

House of Cards

2005-01-31T10:02:00.000+11:00

The novel, House of Cards, first appeared in the late 80s. It was the first novel written by Michael Dobbs, one of the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's inside men. So presumably, when Dobbs wrote this novel, he had a fair idea of what kind of stuff used to take place inside the walls of Parliament.

His novel tells of the Chief Whip Francis Urquhart. (A Chief Whip is the person who rounds up all the politicians in a political party to make sure they all vote on issues in Parliament. The idea for this story is that if he has to be able to round everybody up in a hurry, the Whip would thus know a lot about all the politicians and would have a fair amount of juicy information on his hands.)

A new PM has just been elected and Urquhart is hoping for a promotion. However, when this does not happen, he starts off on a diabolically clever and convoluted revenge campaign of blackmail, deception and worse. As you read the novel, you watch how, step by step, Urquhart topples the PM and then eliminates all competition that stand between himself and the top job. The brilliance of it all is that as you read it, you think, "That could really happen. That kind of stuff could happen in Parliament all the time and we would never know."

The TV series goes even one better. Turning Urquhart into a kind of Shakespearian villain, he actually talks to the camera! Played by the very suave, elderly Ian Richardson, Urquhart charms and deceives everyone . . . except us, the audience, whom he confides in with absolute honesty (even going so far as to tell us not to have pangs of conscience when his dealings start to get really shady).

Amazingly enough, a week after the first episode of this show went to air in 1990, Margaret Thatcher resigned as PM. The show overnight became an amazing prophetic TV series, and it went on to fame and two sequels. (Which I shall review some time in the future.) While definitely stuck in that 80s/90s timeframe, like Richard III, the main character is so fascinating, and the story so clever, that we'll be keen on this one for years. 5 out of 5.

The Incredibles

2005-01-24T13:33:00.000+11:00

I was actually kind of dragged along to this movie, because I'm not a die-hard fan of computer animation at the best of times. I think mainly because the only kind of stories that they tell are family-oriented, feel-good stories. You know they're going to have a bad guy, a couple of chase scenes, a few one-liners and a happy ending. What's new?

Well, the Incredibles does actually have all of this, but nonetheless, I feel I may have underestimated it before I went to see it. (I'll blame it on the trailer, which really didn't sell me . . .) This movie is a lot of fun, and quite intriguing to watch because it actually spends a lot more time on the characters than you would expect it to. It has some quite strange humour that would probably only appeal to adults (I mean, I don't really expect kids to understand anything in the whole insurance company sequences at all . . . are kids even going to know what insurance is?).

And the music and the cars are a deliberate rip-off of James Bond. (If you loved the old 60s Bond Music or even the Pink Panther soundtracks for that matter, then you will quite enjoy this.) All in all, I think I'd give this one 4 1/2 out of 5. Not bad for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The Office: Season 1

2005-01-24T13:32:00.000+11:00

This English TV series became a cult classic very, very quickly upon its release. Filmed as a mockumentary about an office that sells paper in Slough, England, the show has no laughter track, and makes very little attempt to have smart dialogue, one-liners or other things that we're used to in sitcoms. Instead, it has exruciatingly painful observations of life in an office. From the boss who thinks he's really entertaining (but is clearly not), to the anal work colleague who lords it over other people, to the funny way people in an office chat each other up, this show captures it all.

If you've ever endured the awkward silence that comes after someone in the office has said something inappropriate in front of you all, this show will make you feel it all over again. If you can go there (like me), this show is 5 out of 5 (with a caution that some of the episodes are quite seedy, which can be, sadly, quite accurate of life in an office). If you've never worked in an office, or you don't want to be reminded about it . . . you'll give it a lot less.

Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

2005-01-24T13:31:00.000+11:00

I first saw this film about 10 years ago on video up in Brisbane and it terrified me back then, and nothing much has changed since. It's actually a black comedy by Stanley Kubrick from the 60s, but "black" is the operative word here. Shot in stark black and white, this movie tells the story of General Jack D Ripper, commander of a US Air Force base who goes nuts and orders his bombers to drop nuclear bombs on Russia. (His reason: the monstrous Commie plot to fluoridate the water supply and dilute our precious bodily fluids. "Have you ever seen a Commie drink water, Mandake? They don't, do they? Only vodka. Have you ever wondered why that is?")

Unbeknownst to the Americans, the Russians have built a Doomsday Device, designed to decimate the entire world if they are bombed.

Every actor in the film does a fantastic job, from Peter Sellers in three roles, to George C Scott in his greatest role besides Patton and Sterling Hayden as the crazy General Ripper. The politicians and generals bicker and fight over absolutely nothing, as we count down to the end of the world. We watch it, shake our heads and realise that this is EXACTLY how our leaders would act if the world was coming to an end. It's hilariously funny, but strangely tense and gripping all at the same time.

There are so many sequences in this film that have gone into film history, that I won't both to name them. Open any book on famous films, and you'll see Dr Strangelove in there. With good reason. 5 out of 5.

Relentless Pursuit: Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano

2005-01-21T16:14:00.000+11:00

Dave told me today that we classical people have our own jargon (which is kinda true) . . . words like "concerto" and "symphony", etc. So, very quickly . . .

A symphony (normally) is a musical piece composed for an orchestra. A concerto is kind of the same but it's for a solo instrument and an orchestra. So, in other words, it's really all about showing off the solo instrument, and the orchestra is like the backup band. Whereas, in a symphony, the whole orchestra is showing off, and it's all about the group.

So if you hear the words "piano concerto", you know you're (usually) talking about a piece for solo piano and orchestra . . .

However, here's where this absolutely crazy little piece comes in. Written by Alkan (a famous French pianist from the 1800s), this piece is . . . get this . . . a concerto for solo piano.

That's because, in this piece, the piano is meant to play the orchestra part AND the piano part.

It's easily one of the most crazy, finger-busting, extravagant, mind-blowing pieces of piano music I have ever heard in my life . . . No wonder you don't hear many people play it! One pianist, playing thousands and thousands of notes for almost 50 minutes. It's in three sections, and the first section goes for nearly half an hour . . .

I'm not a die-hard fan of piano music, but this piece is amazing to behold . . . I hope I'll be able to see it live one day.

Rats in the Ranks

2005-01-18T16:22:00.000+11:00

'Tis a sad day in the Hodge household. One of my all-time favourite videos, "Rats in the Ranks" got eaten alive by my video player last night. (Actually, I suspect it got eaten alive by someone else's video player when I lent it out last, but anyway . . .)

This is an awesome Australian documentary about mayoral election in 1994 in Leichhardt Council. When the film opens, Larry Hand has been mayor for three years and wants to get in for one more year. Mayors only get voted for by the council members, so Larry only has to persuade 11 other people to vote for him . . .

However, life is never that simple, and there are at least three other people who want to have a go at the top position themselves. The film is an hour and a half of backstabbing, double-deals, drawing names out of hats, and generally hilarious shenanigans by the councillors.

Of course, the big thing about this that hits every viewer is the question, "If this is what politics is like at a local level, how bad must it be in the federal government?" This is an awesome film, that I find amusing every time I watch it . . . but alas, now that my irreplaceable video has been chewed, I don't know if I'll be watching it for a while. 5 out of 5.

Relentless Pursuit: Mahler Symphony No 8

2005-01-18T16:21:00.000+11:00

I can't remember . . . did I start calling these columns "Cold Shivers" or "Relentless Pursuit"? Anyway, for those who came in late, it's the 2005 edition of the Relentless Pursuit of Cold Shivers.

And what better way to start off the New Year than by finishing off my reviews of the Mahler Symphonies. There's only three left and these three, folks, are the ones that need to be listened to.

I'm quite happy if no one ever puts themselves through the bone-crunching depression of the No 6, or the quirkiness of the No 5. They're not for everybody.

But these last 3 symphonies I'm going to talk about are three of the most amazing pieces of music ever made. They're possibly a little tricky to get into, but if you can meet Mahler where he is at, you will never forget them. From the moment they were created onwards, they have continued to provoke intense emotional reactions in audiences all around the world.

The No 8 is an unusual symphony because it has a huge choir and is sung all the way through. Actually, it's less of a symphony, and more of a cantata (which is a work for choir), but Mahler called it a symphony, so I won't argue with him. In the original performance, there were so many orchestra members, choristers, etc. that there were over 1,000 performers. To advertise it, the events manager called it "The Symphony of a Thousand" and the name has stuck ever since.

It's split into two parts. Part one goes for about 20 minutes and is sung in Latin. It's an old hymn in praise of the Holy Spirit and it's quite spectacularly put together. The music ranges from a huge sound, right down to very quiet (almost like chamber music).

Part II is even better. It's sung in German and is taken from the text of Goethe's famous book Faust (it's the story of a man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for youth). I think it's the end of Faust where, from what I can gather from some rather dodgy program notes of mine, Faust's girlfriend pleads with the Blessed Virgin for Faust's soul or something like that. Whatever it's about, the music gets increasingly higher and higher and more and more heavenly, until it ends in a huge majestic climax. As far as choir music goes, it's probably one of the most spectacular and beautiful pieces ever written.

However, it's still only third place in the Mahler Symphony lineup . . . 2nd place coming soon.

Mona Lisa Smile

2005-01-11T13:09:00.000+11:00

Saw this movie with Rach on DVD. For those blokes of you out there who would have tried to ignore this movie when it came out, it's about an exclusive girls' school in the 1950s, Wellesley, and what happens when a very non-1950s looking Julia Roberts goes along there to teach art.
Back in those days, women were really just grooming up to be good housewives (at least according to this movie), and so Julia, by suggesting that women can be other things besides a housewife, really rocks the traditional boat.

The real question that arose out of this movie, which Rach pointed out to me, is that in some Christian circles, a lot of the same stuff about a woman's place and how she should act, etc. etc. sounds awfully similar to this movie. Was the 1950s idea a really Biblical idea, or did Christians back then incorporate the 1950s into their Biblical thinking about the role of women? A question to ponder . . .

3 out of 5 for the movie. A bit more for the questions raised.

King Kong

2005-01-07T14:41:00.000+11:00

If the large audience that exists today for mindless blockbuster films was around in 1933 they must have thought this movie was great when it came out. A maverick film-maker takes a boatload of men (and one woman picked off the street the night before) and heads out for a strange island in the middle of the ocean where rumours abound of Kong, some ancient scary god.

Well, of course, Kong turns out to be a giant gorilla who likes the woman they brought along with them on the boat. From then on it's a non-stop action film with giant gorillas, goodness knows how many dinosaurs (Kong has fights with about three of them in the space of an hour) and, of course, that famous finale back in New York City on top of the Empire State Building.

Yes, the acting is cheesy. The script is corny. The special effects look REALLY dated today. But, hey, apart from the special effects, not much has really changed with creature films. It'll be interesting to see what Peter Jackson does with it. I'll give it a 4 out of 5 for nostalgia.

Meet the Fockers

2005-01-07T14:39:00.000+11:00

Saw this one on holidays. If you remember from the original "Meet the Parents", Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) had to go out to visit his girlfriend's parents to get her father's permission to marry her. The hilarious thing about this film was that Pam's parents were exact replicas of a breed of American that I had encountered when I was over in the States for 10 weeks at the end of my first year of university.

I was on several occasions (and for certain events like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years), invited around to several places in Virginia which were very like the Burns household. Nearly all of these people were well-off upper middle-class people who were fairly proud of their nice homes. They were always very nice, but you'd walk into their big houses and they'd be immaculately laid out and spotless. They'd say that they were having a casual meal, but there would be three sets of cutlery at each place on the table. So while the people were very nice, there was a sense in that, as an unwary visitor, I was always a bit nervous about putting a foot wrong.

So to watch Ben Stiller in just such a house, putting every single foot wrong (actually, he just put his whole body wrong, let's face it) and breaking every single rule in the book was HILARIOUS.
However, the sequel, Meet the Fockers, is not nearly as funny. In this one, Greg, having successfully won Pam's hand, takes her parents down to meet his parents. Greg's parents are the exact opposite from Pam's and that is where the comedy lies. However, a lot more of the jokes rely on sex this time around than they did in the last movie and it starts to wear thin after a while. The characters are still amusing to watch, but overall not as funny. 3 out of 5.

The Phantom of the Opera

2004-12-30T13:12:00.000+11:00

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while will know that I like music and images combined together. I'm not sure when I first worked this out, but from Fantasia onwards, I've always been a fan of watching pictures with accompanying music. While I definitely like the two combined, I'm more and more realising that if I favour one or the other, I favour the music.

Which is why I think I'm getting slightly less interested in film after 10 years of being nuts about it. Because over those 10 years, soundtracks have become increasingly less interesting. They're either completely recycled, or they're very minimalist, or they're played by a solo guitar (a low-budget soundtrack trick that Australian movies are notorious for). Or, worst of all, a rock soundtrack designed to sell thousands of copies (Matrix, anyone?) But the kind of music I respond most to is a full-blown, over-the-top, emotions-raging orchestra, but I don't really want to have to watch romantic comedies or cheesy action adventures just to get a good soundtrack.

So, yeah, overall, I'm a soundtrack man.

I have a feeling, though, that most movie goers are picture people. Because no one else out there is really complaining about music in film nowadays. And in the case of Phantom of the Opera, the voice from the critics seems to be largely too much music, not enough picture.

If you check rottentomatoes.com, you'll see that about three quarters of the reviews for this film are bad. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you can probably discount the reviewers who hated the musical to start with. (My favourite quote was from a reviewer who called Phantom "the Top Gun soundtrack of musicals".)

But a lot of the reviews were along the lines that the singers weren't necessarily great actors, and all they did was stand there and sing a lot of the time. Or that the characters were pretty cardboard and didn't seem to do much.

For me, this is precisely the beauty of this film. The music tells the story in a way that no script writer can compete with. The Phantom (for those of you who don't know the story) is a guy with a mask (because his face is horribly disfigured) who lives deep below the Paris Opera House in the late 1800s and bosses the theatre management around to get a young chorus girl, Christine, into the lead roles.

Now, the Phantom is meant to come across as kind of a creepy character (who kills people when they annoy him), but also as quite a romantic at heart. This is tough to pull off for script writers or actors, in general, but the music explains all this without any trouble at all. The Phantom's music alternates being quite gothic and creepy and terribly, terribly romantic (and often both at once), so that you can alternate between feeling sorry for him and being scared of him without any trouble at all.

The best parts in this film are when the music does it all. The defining scene for me was the duet between Christine and her boyfriend, Raoul, on the roof of the opera house. The words are somewhat soppy, and their acting isn't necessarily the best, but the music just draws you into the sheer romance of the thing, and when you see the Phantom hiding on the balcony listening to every word, you feel his heart breaking.

And this is why I love this film. If hearing two people singing on a balcony doesn't sound like much fun to you, then you're welcome to join the other three quarters.

Finally, there are a handful of people out there who have seen the musical or listened to the CD who thought that this person's acting was wooden, or this person's voice was inferior to the person on the CD's, etc. They are mostly right, but the cast they have picked look very good on the big screen, and I'll forgive any shortcomings in the singing. Hey, they certainly didn't do a bad job. 4 1/2 out of 5.

Edward Scissorhands

2004-12-30T13:09:00.000+11:00

While I was visiting my family in Brisbane this Christmas, I watched this DVD of my sister's. The slightly warped tale of a man created by an inventor with scissors for hands. The inventor dies before he can put hands on Edward, and so he's left with scissors. A friendly Avon lady finds him and takes him home.

This is a strange movie, because it's part Frankenstein, part Beauty and the Beast, and overall quite original. It's Tim Burton, of course. The thing I like best about this movie is the soundtrack by Danny Elfman, which is very quirky, but also very beautiful when it needs to be. (This is the one that started that craze of boys' choirs in movie soundtracks, I think.) It's one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a while. (And I'll have more to say about soundtracks in my next review.) Because of the music, I'll give this one 4 out of 5.

Ocean's Twelve

2004-12-28T10:46:00.000+11:00

Did you like the original Ocean's 11? Why did you like it?

If you liked it because you thought the heist was cool, or you liked the plotting, you may not like this sequel as much.

If you liked the first one because of the interaction between the characters, then you will find it just as entertaining as the first one.

Overall, it's not quite up to the first one, which was almost perfect for the film that it was, but I doubt you'll get bored.

4 1/2 out of 5.

National Treasure

2004-12-28T10:44:00.000+11:00

We saw this one in Adelaide to kind of do something lowbrow compared with the opera. And this is fairly lowbrow, being a Disney film about a bunch of guys trying to steal the Declaration of Independence so that they can find a treasure protected by Freemasons throughout the years.

If you like Nicolas Cage movies, you'll like this one. 3 1/2 out of 5.

Back to the Future: Part III

2004-11-16T14:40:00.000+11:00

And completing the trilogy, we have, of course, Part III. Compared to the other two (and especially Part II), this is a bit of a light-hearted romp. Marty has to go back to 1885 because Doc ends up getting killed there. (well, it was a good excuse, wasn't it?)

And so we have all sorts of western jokes going on, with Marty running around using the name "Clint Eastwood". This is probably the most in-depth of the films with, as the filmmakers said, the focus being on Marty changing his character (rather than the 80s materialistic ending of the first film, where his journey involves him getting a new car, his family being well-off, etc.)

I felt a little bit let-down by this film, but, hey, these are fun characters and we'll always come back to them, won't we?

3 1/2 out of 5.

Back to the Future: Part II

2004-11-08T16:47:00.000+11:00

Rach and I sat down to watch Part II a couple of weeks ago. Neither of us had seen all of Part II and III before, so it was a bit exciting. Kind of.

The first 45 minutes of this film, where Marty and Doc go into the future was a little bit over-the-top for my liking. Wild craziness, corny jokes and a really crazy cast of characters was all a bit overwhelming, really.

However, where the film really picked up steam was with the idea of Marty having to go back to 1955 and wander around in the background of the first movie. The whole thing was very, very cleverly put together and makes this film worth a look. Well, hey, you'd want to see how the trilogy ended anyway, wouldn't you? 3 1/2 out of 5.

Cold Shivers: Sacred Russian Choral Music

2004-11-05T16:18:00.000+11:00

Came across this 7-CD box set in the North Sydney library a few weeks back. I think I could get to like this Russian choral music stuff. There's not really anything like it that I've ever heard. It's very, very quiet (so it's good for falling asleep to), and it's got a really full sound. Perhaps not much of a tune, but it's really, really relaxing and beautiful. Don't know where you're going to hear Russian choral music live in Australia, but it's worth a try sometime.

Cold Shivers: Mahler Symphony No 1

2004-11-04T17:13:00.000+11:00

Okay, the rest of you who were skipping over my Mahler posts: WAKE UP! THIS POST IS FOR YOU. The next four Mahler symphonies (oddly, the only four left) are ones that I would recommend to anyone to listen to, whether or not their preferred music of choice consists of Paul Kelly and Shaniah Twain. These next four symphonies are huge, spectacular and have some amazing, amazing moments in them. Especially if you hear them live.

Now, I haven't actually heard the Mahler 1 live (though my wife and Lisa Whitbourn got to last year), but having heard several recordings of it, I can tell you that this is a bizarre and awesome piece of music.

It's in four movements and runs at just under an hour. (Though as Mahler fans know, that's rather short, all things considered.)

Movement I starts very mysteriously. It's like the wind blowing across a field in the country. You can start to hear things like bird calls from the flutes, vague military trumpets in the distance (and they usually stick the trumpeters away from the main stage somewhere, so it sounds as if it's in the distance). This then builds up to a cheery kind of song in the middle of it. It's all very nice. But wait . . . there's more . . .

Movement II consists of a noisy country dance! With a slow dance in the middle . . . and then back to the noisy dance! Very country and out there . . . But this is just the beginning . . .

Movement III is one of the most bizarre pieces of music ever written. A double bass starts playing "Frere Jacques" in the minor key . . . if you've ever heard "Frere Jacques", you'll recognise the tune, but this make it sounds weird. Then a funeral march starts up. It is a funeral march for a dead hunter, being accompanied by all the animals, with a gypsy band up the front. So in this movement, you get a mixture of "Frere Jacques", a funeral march and a gypsy band . . . if that sounds weird, you've got to hear it to believe it. But for some reason, it works. Like, really well. But then it gets better . . .

Movement IV opens with a gigantic bang and we're off into movie soundtrack land. (Well, it would have been if there were movies back then.) Mahler is depicting the Inferno. Gradually, over the next 20 minutes, the music moves from the Inferno to Paradise, getting more and more triumphant. In fact, the final minutes require the brass players to stand up as they belt out this over-the-top majestic tune. If this music doesn't make you want to leap tall buildings and blow up Deathstars, then nothing will!

Having listened to several recordings, my favourite at the moment is the one by Giuseppe Sinopoli, because he really does Movements II and III nicely. (It's not that hard to mess up IV because it's just awesome no matter what you do with it.)

Cold Shivers (Real Ones this Time): Wagner

2004-11-03T15:44:00.000+11:00

Well, it's November, so I can start raving about Wagner. (I was holding off a bit there, in case I started too early.)

At the end of this month, I'm heading down to Adelaide with Rachel to watch "Der Ring Des Nibelungen", which is a cycle of four operas by Wagner that make up one story. (A bit like the "Stars Wars" trilogy of opera, if you like.) Now, I don't know how many people reading this know too much about Wagner. He's . . . it's . . .

Okay, I'll put it like this. Let's say that someone sent you an invite to listen to an epic mythological poem being acted out by a bunch of overweight ugly-looking people wearing dopey costumes. The poem itself would take about 15 hours to get through (over four nights), and would consist of a happy ending whereby everyone who hasn't already died by being clubbed on the head, killed in a swordfight, knocked dead by a grumpy god, gutted by a sword, or been stabbed in the back, would die in a bad fire in the main palace. That's on top of the other nasty stuff going on in the story.

The writer of the poem is a bit of a raver who doesn't know how to write something short, is a crazy womaniser, is anti-Semitic and was a great favourite of Adolf Hitler's. So what would happen if you got an invite to this thing?

I'm pretty sure that even if you did get an invite to such a thing and think it was your cup of tea, you'd be in a small room with a bunch of skinheads and people smoking various strange-smelling substances.

Compare this with a performance of "Der Ring Des Nibelungen", which costs an absolute fortune (I'm not going to tell you how much: you can go to http://www.saopera.sa.gov.au/thering to find out), is guaranteed to attract an audience of people from all over the world whenever one is put on (including several who go to see "Ring" performances every year all over the world) and is always a sell-out with almost no advertising.

What's the difference between the two? The music. That's it. Wagner, no matter what his stories or what he was like himself, wrote some of the most awesome music ever written. You know how you'll be watching a movie and the soundtrack just jumps out at you and you say, "Yeah, this is one of the best soundtracks ever!" Well, multiply that particular soundtrack by 10 and that's Wagner. It's mad, and so far I haven't exaggerated a thing. I'll tell you more over the next couple of weeks.

Cold Shivers: Mahler Symphony No 7

2004-11-01T14:21:00.000+11:00

The Mahler 7 is, apparently, the least popular of Mahler. I can kind of understand why. The ending's a bit crazy (lots of drums and brass), the slow movement has a guitar and a mandolin . . .

But, nevertheless, I really like it. I love the first movement, which starts with a funeral march (hello, it's Mahler, what else is he going to do?) and then goes other places. For some unknown reason, it always reminds me of an old man's funeral. The coffin starts being walked up the aisle, and then we see the old man sitting up the back of the church, invisible to all his friends.

He then leads us on a reminiscence back to his earlier days when he was a boy . . . I'm not sure where it goes after that, but that's what I see.

The second movement is really jaunty as well, which always reminds me of Melbourne in the 1880s, before the big property market crash bankrupted everyone. (Don't ask me why, it just does.)

The third movement is really out there as well and reminds me of Melbourne AFTER the property market crashed.

Well, hey, look, it's not like Gustav really gave clear instructions on what this symphony was about, so I'm allowed to have my own interpretation . . .

Gang Related

2004-11-01T14:20:00.000+11:00

This quality piece of cinema was left in my care by Tom, my old housemate when I lived with my aunt's. An ex-rental video starring James Belushi and Tupac Shakur?? I was going to throw it out, but part of me said I should at least watch it before I threw it out.

So I got together with some of the guys recently to undertake this crucial journey into American cinema of the 90s.

You had to hand it to the filmmakers . . . the plot just got more and more laughable by the minute, with some impressive overacting by James Belushi. Tupac Shakur, I can see, could have had a career as a B-grade actor. Oh well. 2 out of 5.

P.S. If anyone would like to own an ex-rental copy of this fine piece of cinema, it's yours to claim from my house.

Cold Shivers: Mahler Symphony No 9

2004-10-26T17:25:00.000+10:00

We're getting higher up the list, so I'm getting a little bit warmer towards these symphonies. The Mahler No 9 is a heartbreaker. Mahler had been diagnosed with heart troubles, he knew he was on the way out, and so he composed this . . . his ninth symphony.

The middle two movements are kind of wild and crazy (he was probably a bit agitated), but the first and fourth movements are slow and tragic. (Well, no, they get a bit wild as well, but more tragic than wild.) It's very much like someone bidding you a very sad farewell, and especially in light of the fact that Mahler was on the way out, it hits you.

Unlike his earlier symphonies, there's no big crash bang at the end. It just fades out quietly . . . and dies into the distance . . . I'm still not completely into the ninth symphony, but I feel like I understand it . . . You might like it, too, if you've got that melancholic temperament . . .

Cold Shivers: Mahler Symphony No 5

2004-10-21T11:45:00.000+10:00

The Mahler 5 is a little bit like the Mahler 6 in that it's tricky to get into. Actually, as a general rule, if you go for anything past the Mahler 4 (except for the Mahler 8), you're going to find it a bit of a struggle to get into it.

The Mahler 5 is a schizophrenic little number. If you listen to the whole thing, you'll get devastating funeral marches, wild swirling music, beautiful heart-melting slow moments, big brass chorale finales (think the kind of stuff at the end of movies when the hero saves the day) and weird chugging counterpoint. It's a weird, weird mix and if you're actually watching an orchestra perform it live, you're going to get a bit of a kick out of it, because there will be heaps going on.

The problem I have with it is that I cannot keep up with the ideas. I can follow a Beethoven symphony, but I'm really not sure what Mahler is up to with the number 5. (And I've read a book on Mahler symphonies . . .) Again, it's growing on me and if it's this high up on the list, it's more because I hate it less than some of the lower ones. I'm getting there . . .

Incidentally, I've now heard about 3 different versions of this symphony, so I can actually recommend a choice . . . I'd go with Simon Rattle's version on DVD with the Berlin Philharmonic, because you get to watch it rather than just hear it. Also, if you want to hear it, they've got a separate DVD-Audio, for those people who focus more on the sound. Granted, you can't listen to it in a CD player, but you can get this one on CD if you really want to.

Back to the Future

2004-10-21T11:44:00.000+10:00

For youth group the other night, we decided to show them "Back to the Future", figuring by this stage, that not many of them would have actually seen it (they're grade 10 or younger). Actually, it was a bit of a return to something old for me, because I actually hadn't seen this movie SINCE the 80s. I mean, really, to do it proper justice, I needed to see it on VHS, taken off TV, which was where I remember it . . .

Anyway, was it as good as I remembered? There were some surprises. "Wow, so Marty's mum and dad are just the young kids in old makeup?" (I never remember noticing that at the time . . . I just thought they bore a very good resemblance.)

Overall, it is a piece of light entertainment . . . but it is a CLEVER piece of light entertainment. Everything you see in the first 15 minutes is a setup for the rest of the film. It's a lot of fun. And everyone enjoyed themselves. 4.5 out of 5.

Cold Shivers: Mahler Symphony No 10

2004-10-21T11:39:00.000+10:00

The Mahler 10 is an odd symphony because Mahler died before he could finish it. Well, sorry, he finished it, in that he wrote out the complete thing. But in terms of the actual orchestrations (whose playing what part), he never got it finished. The first movement is completely orchestrated, but the rest is only really written for piano.

Originally, the deal was that nobody was supposed to be allowed to finish it, but that eventually got lifted and a few scholars have had a crack at finishing it off. The most famous one (and the only one I've listened to) was finished by Deryck Cooke. Deryck merely added whatever orchestration was necessary to get it into a stage where you could actually perform it with an orchestra, so it's referred to as "Deryck Cooke's performing version".

So, after all that, what is it like? There's something very quiet and melancholy about it. It's a bit like a goodbye letter that you find after someone has died. It starts and ends quietly. The middle movements are a bit noisier, but I haven't listened to them so much. There's not much in the way of memorable moments or big fanfares, but I think the fact that it's an unfinished work that we can listen to is kind of exciting.

Distinct Lack of Cold Shivers: Stravinsky

2004-10-13T13:20:00.000+10:00

I joined up with the North Sydney library this week and was delighted to find that they have a huge selection of classical CDs that I can borrow.

So, being free, I decided to randomly experiment and borrowed out a box of Stravinsky orchestral works. Now, my previous introductions to Stravinsky were The Rites of Spring from Fantasia and The Firebird (used on Fantasia 2000 and Allegro Non Troppo - see below). And, to be honest, I was never that impressed with them.

But I thought I'd try some more anyway.

Well, I'm into the 3rd CD of this boxset and, I'll be honest, he's not winning me over. It's crash and bang stuff. Boom-boom-boom-BOOM! BOOM! Etc. Hey, look, there may be a cold shiver gem hiding in the next five CDs (and you can't find out until you listen to them, can you?). But so far, Mr Strav is getting the big thumbs-down from me.

Maybe I'll like them when I'm older, but hey, right now, it's my blog and he's irritating me. The Mahler 6 is sounding better and better every day.

The Village

2004-10-13T13:18:00.000+10:00

Saw this one on the last long weekend. Now, unfortunately, this was spoiled for me. If you know M. Night Shyalaman's films, there is always a twist at the end. And it's kind of against the rules of film-goers etiquette to talk about the twist at the end of the Shyalaman film unless you've actually seen the film.

Anyway, I first heard about this film off Mercy Bell's excellent Gods and Generals Website (which just keeps on going long after poor old G&G hit the bottom of the movie foodchain) and decided to google up some information about it to find out what it was about.

Lo and behold, the top link at Google is some idiot on a message board blabbing the twist to everyone. I tried to believe that I hadn't just read the twist, but . . . I had. That guy will never be invited to one of my movie nights.

So, despite all that, I went to see the film. Unfortunately, the giveaway was true, and the ending had been spoiled. However, despite all that, I really enjoyed this one. The atmosphere was very tense, as always in Shyalaman's films. The music was brilliant, especially any of the fiddle stuff. The colour scheme was amazing and played an important part in the story.

And, my favourite, the dialogue was archaic and clunky! All those reviewers who slammed Gods and Generals for having unrealistic dialogue were NOWHERE TO BE SEEN this time around, proving again that reviewers are an absolute pain in the neck when it comes to historical films.

This is a very stylish film. Don't expect anything too fast or furious, and you should quite enjoy this one. 4 1/2 out of 5.

Cold Shivers: Das Lied von Der Erde

2004-10-12T10:03:00.000+10:00

This is not technically a Mahler Symphony. Well, actually, it's probably better to say it technically should be a Mahler Symphony, but Mahler got a bit suspicious because he wrote it just after his 8th symphony. Considering Beethoven and Bruckner had both died after writing their 9th symphonies, Mahler thought he'd jinx himself by calling this "Das Lied Von Der Erde" or "The Song of the Earth".

Ironically enough, after this he wrote his next symphony, which he did call his 9th and he then proceeded to die without finishing his 10th. So maybe he was right after all.

Anyway, "Das Lied" consists of six songs (the last one goes for half an hour) taken from old Chinese poems and, from memory, I think they all revolve around the brevity of life and the inevitability of death and all that kind of stuff. (It's been a while since I actually checked out the lyrics.)

My version is conducted by Mr Mahler himself, Leonard Bernstein, and is sung by a baritone and a tenor. (Normally, it is done with a tenor and an alto.) I'm listening to it at the moment, and it's a bit crazy to get into without words, which is possibly why I'm putting it so low down on the list.

It's got some really nice moments in there, but overall, I'm still not converted yet. Maybe as I get older, I'll get into it more. (There was the famous story told of a conductor who said that his chief regret about dying was that he wouldn't be able to listen to "Das Lied Von Der Erde" again.)

The Rake's Progress

2004-10-12T09:59:00.000+10:00

I saw this movie at Rachel's grandma's place while we were down there for a couple of weekends ago. It came on as a Saturday afternoon movie, and I ended up watching the whole thing, so I thought I might as well review it.

It's an old movie with Rex Harrison in it, in his very young days. It starts out in WWII when the tank he is in goes missing in enemy territory.

We then find out that he's a bit of a playboy and a "cad" as they'd call it back in those days. Switch to flashbacks.

We start back in 1918 and first meet this character (named Vivian, of all things) when he's a young boy. He meets a couple of the war heroes just returned from WWI. They tell him to remember that they are the real heroes of the war, ordinary men who fight for their country. As a souvenir, they give him a little medal that he carries around with him for the rest of the film.

Then flash forward to Oxford. Vivian gets himself expelled from Oxford for climbing on buildings. His long-suffering dad gets him a job at a coffee plantation, where he gets himself sacked for being too outspoken when they lay off a scientist there.

So far he's the lovable rogue type character that we'd expect to find Rex Harrison playing. However, Vivian then moves on to having an affair with his old Oxford roommate's wife, heading off overseas to be a famous racing car driver, racking up huge debts and then, after one particular occasion where he finds himself locked in a hotel room because the hotel owner doesn't trust him to pay his bills, he extricates himself by marrying a rich Jewish girl who wants to marry him so that she can get out of Europe (Hitler was just coming to power.)

So he heads back to England with Jewish wife, gives her the flick to have a fling with his dad's young secretary (this is a 1940s black and white film, we're talking about here, by the way) before giving her the flick as well.

And then what happens? He heads off to WWII, disappears into enemy territory (as we stated at the beginning of the film) and gets killed. Last shot of the film is a look at his last worldly possessions (including the little WWI medal) as the last post is played in the background.
The point is that this guy is useless in peace time and no good to anybody, but is the kind of stuff that WWII heroes are made of. And, for the length of this film, anyway, you believe it. If Rex had played the character too straight, he would have been a real mongrel. If he'd played him too funny, the movie would have been silly. It's just right.

I can understand why he went on to become a famous actor after this. Still, I don't think I'd necessarily want to encourage rakish behaviour, because there's no guarantee that another World War is going to come along so that you can get killed off and be a hero. But, oddly, this movie lingers in my mind. 4 out of 5.

Cold Shivers: Mahler No 4

2004-10-07T15:00:00.000+10:00

Now, this Mahler symphony is down the bottom of the list for the exact opposite reason as the number 6. This one's too cutesy. Again, it could be the recording. The No 4 is themed around the idea of a child's view of heaven.

So the first movement starts off by sounding like "Jingle Bells" and it goes on from there. Actually, it does have a few little dark moments, but compared to his other symphonies, it's more the case that they're a bit cloudy rather than really dark.

The 3rd movement is probably the most beautiful of the lot. (I considered using the first few minutes of it for a processional for my wedding at one stage.) The fourth movement then consists of a soprano singing (very sweetly, mind you), about how great heaven is because you get a lot of food, etc. No, I'm serious. That's what she's singing about. Told you it was a child's view of heaven.

If you want to get into Mahler, and you're into "pretty" music (like Mozart, Mr Pretty Man himself), start with the No 4. For the rest of you, start higher up my list . . .

Allegro Non Troppo

2004-10-07T14:58:00.000+10:00

Showed this one to Rach on video. It's an Italian send-up of Fantasia, albeit a slightly more adult and off-beat one. The movie ranges from flat-out "Who on EARTH thought that was funny???" to some clever moments. Moments, mind you. For those of you who don't know the Fantasia concept, Walt Disney took various pieces of classical music and set animated cartoons to them. In my opinion, it's his greatest animated film, because it's his only arthouse animated film.

But that's a different review. Allegro Non Troppo also does the same thing, but is kind of making fun of it at the same time, by having these black and white sequences in between where a big bully of a conductor is conducting an orchestra of old women while an artist frantically scribbles the cartoons. Probably the best sequence is one that starts with a spaceship throwing away a Coke bottle and then taking off. There's a bit of leftover Coke in the bottom of the bottle, and as Ravel's Bolero starts to play, the Coke starts to mutate into living creatures. They then evolve into all sorts of weird and wacky things over the next 10 minutes.

If you like classical music and animation, you could be mildly interested. I'll give it 3 out of 5.

My Little Eye

2004-10-07T14:57:00.000+10:00

I then followed Predator up with My Little Eye, which was supposed to be quite creepy. A bunch of people follow an internet link and end up on a reality webcast. They have to live in a house for 6 months, and at the end of six months, if no one has left, they all get a million dollars.

Well, nasty things start to happen and things just get worse from there on. The most surprising thing about this film was the fact that the director and producer (whoever the guys were on the audio commentary) turned out to be a couple of middle-aged poms talking away on what was really a hi-tech (or low-tech, considering it's all shot on little internet cameras) slasher flick. The sound design is probaby the best thing about it all (and the creepiest). 2 1/2 out of 5.

Predator

2004-10-07T14:51:00.000+10:00

I wanted to catch up on my Predator films before Alien vs Predator came out, so I hired out the original on DVD. While I had seen the ending of Predator many a time on television, I had never actually seen the beginning.

Wow! There was so much I was missing out on. Arnold Schwarzenegger wandering around the jungle. A spectacular action sequence involving blowing up the headquarters of a bunch of rebels (which, get this, has nothing to do with the Predator at all . . . it advances the storyline nowhere . . . except to introduce the film's only female character . . . who also does nothing to advance the storyline).

After that, it settles down as the soldiers get picked off one by one by the Predator. But I won't say any more because you've either seen it, or you won't want to. 2 1/2 out of 5.

Cold Shivers: Mahler Symphony No 6

2004-10-06T13:10:00.000+10:00

I'm doing this listing going from my least favourite Mahler symphonies to my favourite. That's not to say that this ranking won't change as I get older. The ones lower down the list are just a little bit harder to get into, but I may get more of an interest in them as I get older . . . maybe.

Anyway, the Mahler 6 is definitely bottom of my list. Maybe it's my recording (from my faithful Georg Solti/Chicago Symphony Orchestra box set that just doesn't do it for me (he's not necessarily the world's greatest Mahler conductor).

Either way, the symphony starts off with a quick march as if a dozen elephants are coming right at you. And that's pretty much the feel of the second movement as well.

The third movement is quiet (actually, I'm growing to love it), but it's no good because then we're into the fourth movement.

The fourth movement goes all over the place (I still haven't quite grasped the structure of it yet) and gradually builds up to what would be a heroic ending. Then . . .

WHAM!!!

There's this massive hammerblow and the music just starts falling apart. Seriously, it's as if the orchestra has just given up and is crawling away somewhere to die. As they get quieter and quieter and more miserable . . .

WHAM!!!

They get hit with a second hammerblow. And if you're listening to the right recording, just when you think it's all over . . .

WHAM!!!

The hammer kills them all. Well, not quite kills them, but that's it for this symphony.

Apparently, the hammer is supposed to represent fate or death dealing a blow. Mahler got a bit superstitious about the whole thing and cut the third hammerblow out. But it was no good, because most conductors nowadays stick it back in. It's Mahler's most downbeat ending (pessimists and cynics love it). All his other endings are either gloriously triumphant or fade away to nothing. But this one beats you over the head.

Maybe I'm not a pessimist or a cynic. I'll keep listening to it and see if I can get it.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

2004-10-06T09:24:00.000+10:00

I saw this film with Rach, because I've always been a big fan of Peter Sellers. Rach used to be a big fan of Peter Sellers. Apparently, she's never watching another Pink Panther movie ever again.

This whole film is done as if Peter Sellers is making a film about himself. So it starts with him watching the opening credits on a little screen, and at key points throughout the film, you'll see him actually in makeup as one of the other characters in his life (e.g. his mother, his first wife, Stanley Kubrick, Blake Edwards, etc.) This will either weird you out, or you'll buy it. Doesn't really matter, because Peter Sellers was a weird guy anyway.

The thesis of this movie is that he was so into playing crazy characters, that he didn't really know how to act like a real person. Thus, off-screen, he was just a selfish, crazy-minded, womanising little boy. So not overly likeable.

This is an outstanding performance from Geoffrey Rush (who apparently can't get an Oscar for it, because in the USA, this movie was made for TV), and if you're a Rush fan, his performance is well worth the price of admission.

As for the film itself, the only thing that irritates me is the constant hand-held camera work. Most of the images I have of Peter Sellers are from those old 60s films which had a fairly static camera, normal angles and slow pacing. To watch this frenetic, fast-paced, quick editing in-your-face video style is just not how I think of Peter Sellers. But I'll give it a 4 out of 5.

AFI Nominations

2004-10-06T09:22:00.000+10:00

Well, folks, the four nominated Australian films by the AFI are:

"The Old Man Who Read Love Stories"
"Love's Brother"
"Somersault"
"Tom White"

Apart from "Tom White", it pretty much matched my nominations. As for which film is likely to win, we'll have to wait till the end of October. I'm not sure which one I'd put my money on, because they're all completely different. I don't think "Tom White" will get Best Film, but Colin Friels will almost certainly walk away with Best Actor.

To see all the other nominations, go to www.afi.org.au.