Film Reviews
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Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
Drama with Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy & Mariel
Hemingway.
Manhattan is a witty comedy-drama that most certainly ranks as one of Woody
Allen's most aesthetically charming films. New York City is affectionately
photographed in black-and-white, and brought to life by the vibrant jazz of
native George Gershwin. There are several inspired moments: A twilight scene
filmed under the Brooklyn Bridge; a conversation between Allen and Keaton in
silhouette against a background of stars and planets at the Natural History
Museum in Central Park, a scene which beautifully encapsulates the irony at
the centre of Woody's persona. At the same time, however, I cannot escape the
feeling that our experience of the characters in Manhattan is, for the most
part, a cerebral one. We do not care for Isaac the way we cared for, say, Alvy
in Annie Hall. Stunning,
intelligent, undoubtedly the work of a very accomplished filmmaker, but the
film lacks the heart of some of his other work. Perhaps one of the few moments
that really does engage the heart as well as the head, is the final shot of
Woody, a typically Allenesque moment tinged by a sense of hope as well as
melancholy.
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Manhattan Murder Mystery (Woody Allen, 1993)
Comedy-thriller with Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston
& Jerry Adler.
If Woody Allen made
Rear Window,
this would be it. The formula and structure is strikingly similar: Allen and
Keaton star as a couple who have come to something of a stalemate in their
marriage; she is adventurous, where he, a neurotic (unsurprisingly), is
patently not; when she becomes convinced that a neighbour is responsible for
the death of his wife ("Who?", asks Woody, "You mean our next-door widower?"),
she sets off on a daring Hitchcockian quest to uncover the truth, ending in
the solution of a puzzling mystery that brings the two opposites back
together. A frequently funny diversion.
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Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The (John Ford, 1962)
Western with James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin
& Andy Devine.
In what must surely rank among their finest roles, Stewart is
a progressive city lawyer trying to bring justice and democracy to the
southwest, and Wayne is a tough-talking gunman of the old West. With the help
of an excellent supporting cast, Ford brings great poignancy and sadness to
this tale of America and its people in a time of change.
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Maurice (James Merchant, 1987)
Period drama with James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves,
Denholm Elliot, Billie Whitelaw & Ben Kingsley.
In what must surely be a great milestone in the history of
homosexuality and mainstream cinema, Maurice (Wilby) is a young man coming to
terms with being gay in Edwardian society. Beautifully shot, with exactly the
production values we have come to expect of a Merchant-Ivory production, this
is an engaging film that touches on themes of sexuality, class and religion
frankly, convincingly and with much poignancy. The central romance is handled
movingly.
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Mighty Aphrodite (Woody Allen, 1995)
Comedy with Woody Allen, Mira Sorvino, Helena Bonham-Carter, F Murray
Abraham, Claire Bloom, Peter Weller, Olympia Dukakis & Jack Warden.
Mighty Aphrodite is a modern myth, ingeniously told through the lens of
classical Greek mythology, about a man setting out on the fabulous quest for
beauty. Woody is a father who tries to find the mother of his adopted son, in
the belief that the mother of the child he idolizes will represent perfection.
As always in Woody's world, things don't quite turn out as planned.
Mira Sorvino is charming, and Woody is - well, Woody. This also features
one of Dick Hyman's best scores (arranged from a number of jazz classics, as
usual). And, as ever, one of America's greatest directors skillfully blends
fantasy and reality, life and art to create a heartwarming comedy-drama.
People tend to perceive Woody as essentially a cynic: In fact, his cynicism is
always tempered by a genuine sense of hope; this is keenly felt in one of the
director's best nineties films.
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Miracle Maker, The (Derek W Hayes, Stanislav Sokolof,
2000)
Biblical animation with the voices of Ralph Fiennes, Julie
Christie, Richard E Grant, Ian Holm, William Hurt, Daniel Massey, Alfred
Molina, Antony Sher, Bob Peck & Miranda Richardson.
I am a Christian, a former pastor and a would-be New Testament
scholar, and yet I must confess that Jesus movies don't excite me a great
deal. I loved The Miracle Maker, however. Ralph Fiennes gives an endearing and
original portrayal of Jesus in what strikes me as a fairly original retelling
of the gospel story. I enjoyed the creativity of the writing; for example,
when Jesus tells Mary, "I can still mend doors... but I'm building something
new, now." The animators bring first-century Palestine to life with great
vibrancy, and the diversity of accents in the cast (American, English,
Scottish) really helps to give the setting a cosmopolitan feel. The only
lowlights for me were the traditional animation/cartoon sequences, which
didn't quite work, and were of inferior quality to the clay-animation. Despite
that, however, The Miracle Maker is a wonderful film which, at a healthy 90
minutes, I would recommend to children and adults alike.
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Mission Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996)
Action thriller with Tom Cruise, Jon Voigt, Emmanuelle Beart & Jean Reno.
Mission Impossible is a mindless, extremely silly adventure that makes for
great entertainment. I lost track of the plot after a while, but it didn't
seem to matter. The movie survives by moving from one set-piece to the next
and triumphs because De Palma keeps the tongue firmly in the cheek at all
times. The finale is ridiculously far-fetched, but when at the height of its
silliness Lalo Schifrin's original Mission Impossible theme kicks in, the
film's self-parodying nature becomes suddenly becomes abundantly clear. Best
of all, De Palma achieves this comedic edge without losing any of the suspense
or drama. No classic, but it works great on its own terms.
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Mistons, Les aka The Brats aka The Kids (Francois
Truffaut, 1958)
Short drama with Gerard Blain, Bernadette Lafont & Michel
Francois.
A boy bends down to smell the bicycle seat of a beautiful
girl. A young woman laughs and giggles her way through a game of tennis with
her lover. An elderly man sprays water at a young rascal. Forgettable yet
utterly unforgettable moments are captured on film in Truffaut's enchanting
short film. A beautifully conceived story that seizes the attention from start
to finish, Truffaut brings together the artistic endeavour and human
spontaneity that characterized the best of the French 'Nouvelle Vague' of the
'50s and '60s. It is a real pleasure to watch a simple tale told so
engagingly, so cinematically, a tale in which the the smallness of everyday
life intersects with the vastness of human existence and emotion.
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Mrs Doubtfire (Chris Columbus, 1993)
Comedy with Robin Williams, Sally Field, Pierce Brosnan &
Robert Prosky.
A sickly sweet crowd-pleaser that gushes sentimentality and
features a five-year-old girl so unbearably cute you just want to punch her in
the nose. What saves the film is that it both the physical comedy and the
dialogue contain genuinely funny moments. Robin Williams is on top,
laugh-out-loud form. There's no doubt it entertains, even if you have to
endure the manipulative, trite and saccharine Hollywoodishness of it all.
By the way, any Brit would have seen through Mrs Doubtfire in a second: She
claims to be English, but her accent is clearly Scottish; and she seems to
think England is an island.
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Mummy, The (Terence Fisher, 1959)
Horror with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux,
Eddie Byrne, George Pastell & Felix Aylmer.
After a succession of masterful gothic horrors (Curse
of Frankenstein,
Horror of
Dracula,
Hound of the
Baskervilles), Hammer Studios next turned their attention to the
infamous Mummy. This lacks the brilliance of Hammer's earlier genre offerings,
but is most notable for several unforgettable images that remain imprinted on
the mind long after the film is over. Apart from the striking visuals, this is
a solid, but fairly standard slice of Hammer horror.
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My Fair Lady (George Cukor,
1964)
Musical with Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Stanley Holloway,
Wilfred Hyde-White, Jeremy Brett, Gladys Cooper & Mona Washbourne.
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Nanny, The (Seth Holt, 1965)
Psychological thriller with Bette Davis, James Villiers, Wendy
Craig, Jill Bennett, William Dix & Maurice Denham.
It was a great shame that director Seth Holt passed away only a few years
after The Nanny, for he showed great promise here. He directs atmospherically
from a script by Hammer veteran Jimmy Sangster, based on the novel by Evelyn
Piper. Production values are superior, with camerawork by Harry Waxman and a
musical score by Richard Rodney Bennett that descends delightfully into
Psycho-esque frenzy at just the right moments.
The story has 10-year-old Joey battling his sinister nanny, whom he blames
for the drowning of his younger sister a couple of years previously, but for
which he was blamed. Events spiral into a psychological face-off between the
two at the film's chilling climax.
A fine cast includes child actor William Dix, perhaps more famous for
appearing a few years later alongside Rex Harrison in Dr Dolittle, Villiers as
the austere and ever-so-British and proper father. Import Bette Davis has
often been accused of really hamming it up in the title role, but I think she
plays it just right. The Nanny is certainly the finest in a string of
psychological thrillers produced by Hammer Studios in the sixties, and overall
one of the most memorable efforts of their heyday.
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Nashville (Robert Altman, 1971)
Drama with David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Geraldine
Chaplin, Scott Glenn, Michael Murphy, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Lily
Tomlin & Keith Carradine.
Altman is Altman, and this overlong epic is full of his most characteristic
habits of film-making. As usual, there is a sharply critical edge to his
semi-satirical portrait of America. Unfortunately, however, it lacks any
narrative drive whatsoever, which might not be a problem if it weren't for the
fact that nothing else compensates for this. The characters are devoid of
warmth; there is insufficient reason for us even to care what happens to them.
Fans of country music may well find it a more pleasurable experience: I happen
to loathe most country-and-western, so I found the extended musical episodes
barely tolerable. Watching Nashville is like watching a life unfold only from
a distance; this detachment is fatal to a merely intermittently interesting
film.
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North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock,
1959)
Comedy-thriller with Cary Grant, James Mason, Eva Marie-Saint, Martin
Landau, Leo G Carroll & Jesse Royce Landis.
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One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
(Milos Forman, 1974)
Drama with Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield
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One Hour Photo (Mark Romanek, 2002)
Psychological thriller with Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen,
Michael Vartan & Gary Cole.
I was never a great fan of Williams as a comedian, but he has
proved himself a great actor time and again, including in this superior
psychological thriller. As 'Sy the Photo-Guy', Williams is as chilling as he
is sympathetic. For the most part, director Romanek eschews predictability and
takes us on an ambiguous journey that challenges us and involves us on every
level rather than presenting an easy, black-and-white universe that cues us to
gasp or scream in the appropriate places. This is a tale told with a great
stylistic flair that fleshes out rather than detracts from the thematic
material. Certainly this will come to be regarded as something of a minor
classic in years to come.
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Patch of Blue, A (Guy Green, 1965)
Drama with Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Hartman, Shelley Winters
& Wallace Ford.
Guy Green's tale of the love between a blind girl and a
"coloured" man is no masterpiece, but it is sustained by two touching
performances by Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman. Other characters tend to
be flatly sketched and poorly acted (so Shelley Winters), existing mainly to
propel the merely adequate narrative. Nevertheless, in its own way this tale
is affecting, and there are a few evidences here and there of some directorial
flair. The film is scored by Jerry Goldsmith, whose music is enchantingly
simple.
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Peter Pan (PJ Hogan, 2003)
Fairy tale with Jason Isaacs, Jeremy Sumpter, Rachel Hurd-Wood,
Lynn Redgrave, Richard Briers & Olivia Williams.
Ultimately, PJ Hogan's Peter Pan is a success. There is a
patch about half an hour in, shortly after the arrival in Neverland, when the
film is not quite happy with itself: It becomes far too cute and saccharine
for its own good; the makers can't seem to make up their mind whether they're
pitching for a jolly fun, old-fashioned entertainment or a run-of-the-mill
kiddies' blockbuster; but thankfully, things improve, and the film moves at a
suitable pace towards a thrilling climax. Isaacs is in excellent form as both
Mr Darling and the dastardly Captain Hook, and I also enjoyed British comedy
stalwart Briers as Smee. As Peter, Sumpter has the facial features to be
cheekily good-looking without becoming too cutesy, and his performance strikes
a nice balance between charm and stubbornness.
The special effects belong to the eighties -- I got the impression they threw
away the budget on the crocodile and only later remembered they had other
setpieces to fund -- but the whole thing is generally good fun, with enjoyable
characterizations and a delightfully old-fashioned feel, even if it sometimes
comes across as a little twee. The poignancy with which the themes of
childhood and growing up are dealt with gives it the edge over other versions,
including Disney's memorable 1953 animation.
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Phantom of the Opera, The
(Arthur Lubin, 1943)
Thriller with Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster &
Edgar Barrier.
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Phantom of the Opera, The (Terence Fisher, 1962)
Horror with Herbert Lom, Heather Sears, Edward de Souza,
Michael Gough & Thorley Walters.
Hammer regular Terence Fisher gives Phantom of the Opera a
good shot, but it is not enough. The result is perhaps his most uneven film.
Chief problem is that, although it seems Fisher wanted a sympathetic
protagonist, the Phantom (Herbert Lom) comes across as rather a brute, and
fails to inspire the necessary pity or sympathy. The way he manhandles and
slaps around the heroine (Christine, played by Heather Sears) is fatal to
this, and not helped by the plot's general lack of believability and the
Phantom's insufficient motivations.
This is not to say there are not plenty of great vintage Fisher/Hammer
touches. The suspense is built up effectively at times; unfortunately, as with
the earlier 1943 adaptation, the lengthy and
rather banal operatic sequences tend to defuse the tension. Despite some
fantastic set-pieces (including the impressive Bernard-Robinson-designed
underground lair) and an at-times genuinely sinister Phantom, it lacks punch.
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Pillow Talk (Michael Gordon,
1959)
Comedy with Rock Hudson, Doris Day & Tony Randall.
Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall make an irresistible
combination in this deftly handled romantic comedy. Thelma Ritter deservedly
won an Oscar for her hilarious performance as Day's drunken maid. The film
remains a classy and witty movie even today. It's by far the best-worn and
most entertaining of the three pictures the trio made together, which also
included Lover Come Back
(1960) and
Send Me No Flowers
(1964)
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Plague of the Zombies, The (John Gilling, 1966)
Horror with Andre Morell, John Carson, Brook Williams,
Jacqueline Pearce, Diane Clare & Michael Ripper.
Gilling, of Hammer's finest directors, has turned out an
excellent piece of horror whose influence on the zombie subgenre, especially
in terms of its impressive imagery, has been significant. Admittedly, there
are a few faults: Diane Clare is rather unconvincing; Brook Williams overacts;
the script, while very good overall, suffers occasional lapses. However, these
weaknesses are outweighed by an otherwise excellent cast and execution. It is
hard not to see shades of Christopher Lee in John Carson, superb as the
outwardly charming, inwardly villainous Squire. Morell is strong as usual in
the role of the main protagonist.
Like Gilling's next film, The Reptile, made back-to-back on the same sets,
Plague of the Zombies's thematic centre is power, authority and oppression,
and the film is full of ironic role-reversals, all of which foreshadow the
Squire's eventual demise, the triumph over imperialism and tyranny. But if the
sophisticated subtext makes it all sound rather too dark and heavy-going,
don't be put off: This is a ripping good horror tale in Hammer's best and most
enjoyable style.
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Private Function, A (Malcolm Mowbray, 1984)
Wartime comedy with Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Liz Smith,
Richard Griffiths, Bill Paterson, Denholm Elliot, Tom Postlethwaite & Alison
Steadman.
The Alan Bennett-scripted A Private Function is an amusing
tale about a chiropodist's attempt to steal a pig in post-WWII Yorkshire.
Palin is the longsuffering husband whose wife, Smith, wants to eat pork and
move up in the world during a time when rationing was still in force, and the
market for illicit meat was booming. Eventually Palin and rival pig-thief
Griffiths, looking surprisingly porcine himself, fall in love with the hapless
swine. This is an often very funny look at postwar Britain from a unique
perspective.
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Producers, The (Mel Brooks, 1968)
Satirical comedy with Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars &
Dick Shawn.
I have to admit, The Producers can be a little hit-and-miss
when it comes to being funny, but when it hits it really hits. The opening
titles set the tone brilliantly for an outrageously camp farce. Mostel and
Wilder are an unforgettable combination as the Broadway producers of the
title, who figure they can make more money from a flop than a success. The
result of their scheming is an ingenious pastiche, Springtime for Hitler,
a "gay romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden". Wittily absurd and highly
entertaining.
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Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Thriller with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John
Gavin & Martin Balsam.
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Pygmalion aka Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (Anthony
Asquith, 1938)
Comedy-drama with Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson,
Scott Sunderland, Marie Lohr & David Tree.
Those of us brought up on Rex Harrison will find Howard's Professor Higgins
rather hard to swallow. He is far meaner, far ruder, far more arrogant and far
less the "loveable rogue" than Harrison. But he is no more or less true to
Shaw's original creation, and he turns in a worthy performance alongside
Hiller as Eliza Dolittle, another sterling performance, even if her cockney
accent is even less convincing than Audrey Hepburn's later attempt.
It is difficult nowadays to appreciate just what an achievement this
collaborative effort was, but for its time the cinematic liveliness is
outstanding. The montage sequences are enhanced by Arthur Honegger's stirring
score. Harry Stradling does a fine job of the photography, and was later to
photograph the story again in George Cukor's film version of
My Fair Lady. And, of course, the real star of
the show is George Bernard Shaw's witty and romantic script, which is so
excellently brought to life here by a talented ensemble.
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