Invictus - an uplifting true story of how sport united a nation
By Joyce Glasser - 03/02/2010
There are some stories that are such great material for Hollywood blockbusters that they risk being turned into sentimental clichés. INVICTUS, the story of the South African Rugby team’s miraculous triumph on home ground in the 1995 world cup, could have been another predictable inspirational sports’ movie. The concurrent story of Nelson Mandela’s first year as President of South Africa sails close to the wind of countless worthy biopics of saintly heroes, not to mention the inevitable comparison with Obama’s election.
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'Hachi: A Dog's Tale' lacks spark
It used to be that heart-throb Richard Gere would be shot nude in the shower with the likes of Julia Roberts. When you’re a Hollywood actor over 60, however, the best you can get is a bathtub scene with a Japanese dog.
Commendable approach and a big agenda in 'The Green Zone'
Unusually for an American film, The Hurt Locker eschewed messages and the specific politics of Iraq for a very human take on war in general. By contrast, The Green Zone has a big agenda, and a rather preachy one at that.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
You might not be able to divide the country by political party allegiance anymore, but in some places, you could divide it by those who have read Stieg Larsson’s best selling Millennium Trilogy and those who have not.Joyce Glasser reviews.
'1234'......prepare to be disappointed
If first time feature writer/director Giles Borg was hoping to repeat the success of John Carney’s low budget 2007 Irish film, Once, he will be disappointed. And so will audiences hoping for, at the very least, some good music.
Banksy makes film debut with 'Exit Through the Gift Shop'
From Salvador Dali (Un Chien Andalu) to Steve McQueen (Hunger) and Sam Taylor-Wood (Nowhere Boy) painters and sculptors have been tempted to extend their range to the moving image with varying degrees of success.
This week, fans of the UK’s most famous street artist, the elusive Bristol boy, Banksy, can watch his debut film, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Ondine
Ondine is the latest film from Irish writer/Director, Neil Jordon (Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, Breakfast on Pluto) and its genesis is only too apparent. Joyce Glasser reviews.
A movie not even a mother could love.
In the production notes to the film Motherhood, writer/Director Katherine Dieckmann (A Good Baby, Diggers) asks: ‘Why aren’t there any decent comedies about motherhood? She is, of course, preparing us for the news that her third feature will fill that alleged void. With the gauntlet thrown down and movies like Baby Boom dismissed as fairy tales, you’d expect Motherhood to be, at the very least, funny. Instead, newly weds and single twenty/thirty somethings will be running for the morning after pill and everyone else will be sending cheques to their nearest population control group.
Topical horror in 'Case 39'
If you’re in the mood for a topical horror movie, Case 39, about a ten-year old child (Jodelle Ferland) ‘saved’ by the intervention of kindly, zealous social worker, Emily Jenkins (Renee Zellweger), could have been written by Haringey Council’s Sharon Shoesmith.
'Chloe' -a thriller of two halves
The first half of Chloe is Egoyam back to form with a tense, dark study of a middle aged woman’s sexual insecurity, while the second half is a cringe-worthy variation of Fatal Attraction. Joyce Glasser reviews.
'Alice in Wonderland' - Burton's most beautiful film yet
The collaboration between American expatriate Director Tim Burton, and American expatriate actor Johnny Depp that began twenty years ago with Edward Scissorhands, hit a new high point in 2007 with Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Seville. A clever reworking of the historic legend, the film revealed a new dimension to Depp’s acting -- and singing talent.
Depp’s vulnerability added to his sex appeal in Sleepy Hollow, and his androgynous recluse in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was perfect for the book’s adaptation. Now Burton and Depp are back with Burton’s most ambitious and, arguably, his most beautiful, film yet: a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland set in a virtual 3D world
Michael Moore focuses on 'Capitalism: A Love Story'
Once you are comfortable with the idea that Michael Moore films are, like the much inferior John Pilger’s, polemics, and not documentaries, you can settle down to enjoy their humour, pathos, humanism and insightful attacks on corporate greed, right-wing politics, and the gap between the rich and the poor.
'Micmacs' has 'all the subtly of sledge hammer'
Micmacs is the latest tedium from 57-year-old Jean-Pierre Jeunet very much in the style of Amélie and A Very Long Engagement, but even more puerile and self-indulgent. Again, he gives us some beautiful images, adults with arrested development and a confusing story that lacks a narrative drive or any internal logic. Essentially, this is a series of elaborate set pieces, more amusing for Jeunet to construct than it is for the audience to watch.
'Extraordinary Measures' too lacklustre to make a splash in the cinema.
Extraordinary Measures, inspired by Geeta Anand’s book The Cure, tells the story of a desperate Harvard Business School businessman (Brendan Fraser) who quits his high powered job to go into business with a temperamental, childless, scientist (Harrison Ford), in the hope of saving two of his children’s lives. It is similar to another true story of dedicated parents risking all to find a cure for their child’s rare genetic affliction: the Oscar nominated, Lorenzo’s Oil.
Robert de Niro returns to screen with 'Everybody's Fine'
Robert de Niro, now 67, is back on the screen, not as a cop, but as Frank Goode, an ordinary bloke, who spent his life toiling in a local telephone wire company so that his four children (two handsome sons and two beautiful daughters who look nothing like him) could have the best education and careers possible. Now retired, widowed and lonely, he decides to invite them to a family gathering as his wife used to do, but they all come up with excuses. When Frank decides to travel across country to pay them a surprise visit, he learns more about himself and his children than he bargained for.
