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not quite new films
Jun. 16th, 2005 11:11 amThe Gathering Storm
HBO bio-pic* of Winston Churchill sounding the tocsin prior to WW2. Albert Finney is Churchill. Damn, he's good, the same way Anthony Hopkins as Nixon was good: doesn't look like him, but makes you believe anyway. Supposedly based on Churchill's book of that title, but the depiction of public events is superficial and, in the name of simplicity, inaccurate. Treats the effectiveness of Churchill's arguments as solely a function of the information Ralph Wigram was slipping him from the Foreign Office, which was no more the case than that Woodstein rose or fell on Deep Throat alone. I didn't like the depiction of Stanley Baldwin (Derek Jacobi) as a heavy-handed Mafia-like PM who squashed opponents like bugs. In real life, Baldwin was sly. He'd defang opposition by hinting that he'd like to take the rebel into the government, and when the crisis was over would retroactively change his mind: Churchill was not the only old hand he successfully pulled that one on. The film is much better on Churchill's personal life: watching him grovel out an apology for insulting his wife (Vanessa Redgrave, also outstanding) was quite amazing.
The Thomas Crown Affair
The remake with Pierce Brosnan; I've never seen the original. I like caper films, but this didn't work as one. The theft at the beginning had too many obvious improbabilities, especially the moment when, after the alarm goes off in the museum, the thief slides under a blocked portcullis while dozens of people are walking by who never notice. Then the story turns into a steamy cat-and-mouse game between Brosnan and Rene Russo, who have no chemistry at all. At this point I quit.
Chasing Amy
I enjoyed Kevin Smith's Clerks, which was the only really smutty film I'd seen that was actually funny. Too many people think smut is funny without any actual humor content. Unfortunately that includes Smith, whose Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was nothing more than disgusting. Which would Chasing Amy, which came between them, be like? Answer: like Clerks, only with real actors and better production values. I liked it, even when the characters were shocking me with their level of discourse, because it was both funny and human. Still, I could hardly identify with the protagonist's obsession with his girlfriend's previous sex life, a theme that also appears in Clerks. Smith's work is for me like a glimpse into an alien and very unpleasant world. But two out of three times it's funny.
Finding Neverland
Not quite so not quite new. Departures from historical fact mostly forgivable for the richness of the story-telling. Great acting, good scriptwriting, brilliantly conceived dips into the visualization of the imaginary world. Depicts Barrie as a man who almost, but not quite, maintains the balance between knowing when it's time to be playful with children and when it's time to cut the silliness and speak seriously with them. I strive for that balance myself, and it was fun to watch him try. I don't have anything like Barrie's creative imagination, but when I'm on form I have a reactive imagination akin to how he's depicted here. The scene where he first meets the boys - were I sitting on a park bench and found a small boy lying underneath who claimed to have been imprisoned there, I hope I would have the wit to respond exactly the way Barrie does here.
*I insist on a hyphen in bio-pic. To me, biopic looks as if it should be pronounced bi-opic.
HBO bio-pic* of Winston Churchill sounding the tocsin prior to WW2. Albert Finney is Churchill. Damn, he's good, the same way Anthony Hopkins as Nixon was good: doesn't look like him, but makes you believe anyway. Supposedly based on Churchill's book of that title, but the depiction of public events is superficial and, in the name of simplicity, inaccurate. Treats the effectiveness of Churchill's arguments as solely a function of the information Ralph Wigram was slipping him from the Foreign Office, which was no more the case than that Woodstein rose or fell on Deep Throat alone. I didn't like the depiction of Stanley Baldwin (Derek Jacobi) as a heavy-handed Mafia-like PM who squashed opponents like bugs. In real life, Baldwin was sly. He'd defang opposition by hinting that he'd like to take the rebel into the government, and when the crisis was over would retroactively change his mind: Churchill was not the only old hand he successfully pulled that one on. The film is much better on Churchill's personal life: watching him grovel out an apology for insulting his wife (Vanessa Redgrave, also outstanding) was quite amazing.
The Thomas Crown Affair
The remake with Pierce Brosnan; I've never seen the original. I like caper films, but this didn't work as one. The theft at the beginning had too many obvious improbabilities, especially the moment when, after the alarm goes off in the museum, the thief slides under a blocked portcullis while dozens of people are walking by who never notice. Then the story turns into a steamy cat-and-mouse game between Brosnan and Rene Russo, who have no chemistry at all. At this point I quit.
Chasing Amy
I enjoyed Kevin Smith's Clerks, which was the only really smutty film I'd seen that was actually funny. Too many people think smut is funny without any actual humor content. Unfortunately that includes Smith, whose Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was nothing more than disgusting. Which would Chasing Amy, which came between them, be like? Answer: like Clerks, only with real actors and better production values. I liked it, even when the characters were shocking me with their level of discourse, because it was both funny and human. Still, I could hardly identify with the protagonist's obsession with his girlfriend's previous sex life, a theme that also appears in Clerks. Smith's work is for me like a glimpse into an alien and very unpleasant world. But two out of three times it's funny.
Finding Neverland
Not quite so not quite new. Departures from historical fact mostly forgivable for the richness of the story-telling. Great acting, good scriptwriting, brilliantly conceived dips into the visualization of the imaginary world. Depicts Barrie as a man who almost, but not quite, maintains the balance between knowing when it's time to be playful with children and when it's time to cut the silliness and speak seriously with them. I strive for that balance myself, and it was fun to watch him try. I don't have anything like Barrie's creative imagination, but when I'm on form I have a reactive imagination akin to how he's depicted here. The scene where he first meets the boys - were I sitting on a park bench and found a small boy lying underneath who claimed to have been imprisoned there, I hope I would have the wit to respond exactly the way Barrie does here.
*I insist on a hyphen in bio-pic. To me, biopic looks as if it should be pronounced bi-opic.
