MartinPh Reviews

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Amazingly overrated

[3/10 · 8 November 2009]

I've heard people say you won't sleep after seeing this movie. I almost fell asleep watching it. Though PA is often compared to the Blair Witch Project, and though superficially it may seem to share a few of that earlier movie's strengths, in fact it makes the one mistake that BWP so carefully avoided: of showing too much. BWP doesn't show you a single thing that is obviously supernatural; but PA goes all out on fleeting shadows, self-incinerating ouija boards, swinging lamps, billowing sheets, windy living rooms and demon-victims being dragged across the hallway.

This is all so terribly over the top that instead of being scary I found it quite ludicrous. Of course the haunted couple never does the obvious things, like switching on the light, closing the bedroom door, or changing sides in the bed (the girl is the one targeted by the 'demon' yet sleeps next to the open door.) I'll grant that the actors aren't doing a bad job, but a lot more is needed to make the antics of this particular demon even remotely believable. Especially as some inconsistencies are pretty glaring. e.g., the paranormal expert Dr. Fredrichs makes it clear he can't do anything for the couple, yet the demon is very angry at his being in the house. Why? The fact that at least three different endings were filmed doesn't say much for the integrity of the entire concept either. It feels pretty much random; a lot of things could have been added or left out without it making much difference. From what I read the original ending is probably more in keeping with the concept of the film than the one now shown in cinema's, that has a demon that's a bit too keen to play for the camera and provide a good, old-fashioned shocker.

Great hype. Big yawn.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Plodding, illogical, overlong

[4/10 · 9 August 2009]

I've never read any of the Potter books, so I watched HP & the HBP as a movie plain and simple, and found myself bored to tears. Of course the art direction and design are again spectacular, but the story is a loose patchwork of disparate elements that is far from compelling and often seems unacceptably random. Why, for instance, does Dumbledore need to drink the fluid that contains the horcrux? It is also quite galling that characters who possess impressive powers of magic never use them at obvious times. Dumbledore is able to magically transport himself and Potter to a desolate rock in the sea (though it's unclear why they would stop there except for creating a nice shot), but then when he has to cross the lake in the cave, he has to conjure up a boat…? Logic is nowhere to be found; the Hogwarts management must be senile to keep allowing the obviously evil Malfoy in, and blind not to suspect Snape. And while Voldemort's cronies have ample opportunity to kill Potter, they refrain from doing so because Voldemort has to do it himself. Why are villains always so unpragmatic? Of course a movie about magic requires suspension of disbelief. But that doesn't mean the makers can get away with anything. And while there is much talk of the more serious, 'psychological' nature of this installment, it all struck me as pretty obvious and very superficial. It's all very well to turn Malfoy into a doubting, troubled youngster all of a sudden, but how did that come about? Nobody cares to explain that to the viewer. In all, this is an overlong, self-important offering that ploddingly drags along to an unsatisfying end. The Prisoner of Azkaban remains, by a wide margin, the best of the Potter films.

Haunted Homes (2004– )

Utter nonsense, and boring too

[1/10 · 19 July 2008]

Just when you thought the inanity of TV-programming had hit rock bottom, along comes Haunted Homes and brainlessness is again redefined. In this series a team of self-proclaimed 'paranormal investigators' visits families who claim to be bothered by ghosts. The formula for each episode is identical, and centers on a 'vigil', involving the victims and the team sitting around in the haunted house, at night, with the lights out, waiting for the ghosts to appear.

Why at night? Why in the dark? Why would the spirits of dead people care whether it is day or night, or light or dark? The only reason that night is the favorite playtime for ghosts, is the fact that humans don't see very well in the dark and want to be asleep at night. Tiredness, sensory deprivation and sitting still in a dark house, especially with the suggestion firmly in place that a ghost may manifest itself, will cause all kinds of sensations that the suggestible and the boneheaded may ascribe to supernatural activity.

Of course infrared cameras and sound recorders are set up – paranormal investigators tend to think their antics become 'scientific' as soon as an electrical appliance is involved. Needless to say, nothing of note is ever recorded on these devices, let alone anything that could serve as evidence for supernatural activity. Yet the team's psychic, the horrible Mia Dolan, oozes fantastical stories about everything she 'senses', and comes up with quite detailed descriptions of the alleged ghost and its history, though rarely are attempts made to verify these. I've seen one episode where they did; but the finding that historical records did not line up with Mia's tale merely got a passing mention and after that was simply ignored.

Interestingly, the team does comprise a token skeptic, a professor of psychology who will go into the haunted place and always finds he doesn't hear, see, or feel anything special and that as far as he's concerned there is no ghost. Again this seems to be done for form's sake only; his conclusions are simply brushed aside as Mia elaborates her spooky fantasies. Of course every random noise that is heard is immediately interpreted as evidence of a haunting; so are headaches, chills, 'the feeling of being watched' – indeed, in one case where the recorders hadn't recorded anything because the battery had run out they actually called that proof of ghostly activity! Never are these far-fetched interpretations challenged or obvious rational alternatives explored.

Episodes end with a 'cleansing', where Mia, amidst a sea of candles, removes the ghost from the house by reciting the De Profundis in what is probably meant to be Latin. It is all so utterly ridiculous that words fail to describe it. One or two episodes may amuse those with a sense of humor, or may educate viewers with an anthropological interest in the sheer nonsense grown people are apparently prepared to believe – but after that it all becomes just extremely boring.

Rome (2005–2007)

Dark and compelling entertainment, though not very accurate

[8/10 · 5 April 2008]

The ingredients do not necessarily suggest a successful TV-series. There's extreme, relentless, at times mind numbing violence, graphically depicted; barely a single sympathetic character is in sight; there is not the slightest hint of anything humoristic (well, except for Ian McNeices delicious newsreader); and as always actual historical fact is twisted and turned into something that may be suitable for entertainment purposes but rather (over)stretches credulity at times – one wonders why, because it's not as if these people actually were a dull bunch leading uneventful lives. Yet "Rome" is strangely haunting and compelling. Often it does a good job of transporting the viewer to a world unencumbered by Christian sensitivities, particularly in its love of bloodsports, its dealings with slaves, and its relaxed attitude to sex and public nudity. Full frontal male nudity is not eschewed, still the final frontier in film-making. Also, and more importantly, "Rome" conveys the constant sense of tension, intrigue and threat dominating the lives of those in power. Finally, a fairly good job was done of giving a realistic impression of the city itself in those final decades before the birth of Christ. It is, however, weird and rather silly that the characters speak English but throw in occasional Latin. Typically, many of the main dramatic historical events are not shown, but only told in flashback. For instance, we do not witness Mark Antony's finest hour, his eulogy at Caesar's funeral, that swayed Roman public opinion against the assassins. Several decisive battles, including that of Actium, are also conveniently skipped.

The story is told from the vantage point of two soldiers, one eventually rising through the ranks, the other only finding a settled existence towards the end. Both are, though in name only, based on historical characters. Gruff and dutiful Lucius Vorenus is haunted by personal tragedy. He struggles with his role as a father and his allegiance to a loosing party, that of Mark Antony; struggles that at one point will land him as the leader of a band of hired assassins. His unlikely friend Titus Pullo leads an aimless existence that never manages to be carefree and that only gains some focus whenever some fighting is to be done. The plot has been constructed around the far-out premise that the whole birth of the Roman Empire pivoted on the actions of these two men, rather than those of Julius Caesar and his ilk. The idea has been woven into the story so tightly and cleverly that it is surprisingly easy to suspend disbelief.

The first season is the more consistent and compelling of the two, dealing with the battle between Julius Caesar and Magnus Pompey. The strife between the families of Caesar and Brutus is exemplified by their two matrons Atia and Servilia, both in their way as vicious and devious a schemer as you're ever likely to see. The development of the relationship between Vorenus and Niobe is believable and quite touching. The second season then depicts the power struggle between Mark Antony and Gaius Octavian, and introduces the exotic element of Egypt, where Cleopatra's court appears to be some kind of whorehouse and the Queen herself a scantily dressed upmarket prostitute. Halfway through this season the story start to get ragged, and some plot lines hang by a precariously thin thread (the way Vorenus discovers his daughter's betrayal is like something out of an uninspired Miss Marple episode). A Jewish subplot is randomly tacked on and feels like a cumbersome invention to burden the story with irrelevant premonitions of Christ. Furthermore, it doesn't help that a substantial number of the more interesting characters, notably Cicero, Servilia and Brutus, are killed off. The "Xena, Warrior Princess"- act of Gaia in the battle of the Collegia is probably the low point of the series. Fortunately, things are pulled together for the final episodes, where the story is satisfyingly wrapped up and the viewer is indeed left, in Octavian's words, with the sense of having traveled a long road.

History buffs will find ample cause to be annoyed nonetheless. Many events are fabricated, characters are missing (where are Octavia's husband Claudius Marcellus, Atia's husband Lucius Phillippus and Marc Anthony's wife Fulvia?), people weren't really in the places where we see them at the moment we see them there (Caesar wasn't killed in the Senate, Cicero wasn't killed at home), and several details of costume and ritual are anachronistic or invented. Alexandria is shown as some rustic backwater rather than the dazzling metropolis it was. Characters are sometimes almost insultingly distorted. Cicero wasn't the abject hypocrite and coward he's been made into by the makers of the series. He delivered the Philippics against Antony himself, and was a figure of great power and huge popularity. Atia gets even worse treatment: described by Tacitus as one of the most admired and devout matrons of Rome, who couldn't bear crude language and was deeply serious, she is turned into a foul-mouthed, violent she-devil. Generally speaking it is a pity that most of the characters are rather flat and stereotyped. It sometime makes it hard to believe when they do change, as when the cynical libertine Mark Antony suddenly waxes philosophical after loosing the battle of Actium. Easily the most complex, fascinating and moving character in the series is that of Brutus, played with consummate skill and total conviction by Tobias Menzies. It is a great pity that the scriptwriters did not retain for him his dignified suicidal death, but instead have him madly confront an entire legion on his own, and die a death mirroring that of Caesar – the symbolism is very trite. Such concerns may seem academic, but in this TV-dominated age its only too likely that many will think that after watching "Rome" they actually know something of Roman history. Not so – but they will have been splendidly entertained.

Cloverfield (2008)

Emperor's new clothes

[1/10 · 22 February 2008]

Spoilers... Really now, what's to spoil? Story lines don't come any thinner than this. Synopsis: Huge monster appears out of nowhere, destroys city, everybody dies, the end. There isn't any sense of commitment to the main characters, who after the random, gratuitous intro spend their time running around screaming. There is no suspense, no explanation, no point. Predictably, the full view of the monster is saved for last, when even the appalling camera work (yes, I KNOW it's intentional) can't disguise the mediocre CGI, nor the lack of inspiration among the monster-designers. Equally predictable, the nasty foot-soldiers it drops look like big spiders – contact with which will make you feel ill and eventually reduce you to an Alien-plagiarism. One does wonder why American filmmakers are so eager to destroy their big cities, especially after 9/11 has provided us with bone chilling imagery that will make any movie of this kind look silly in comparison for decades to come. Not just silly, actually; the way 9/11-like images are opportunistically recycled in this cinematic non-event struck me as rather tasteless. A BBC reviewer quite rightly called it 'plain 9/11 porn'. The makers have worked under the false assumption that 'live', shaky camera-work in dark surroundings will lift it all to a high level of hip artistry, but really, all it does is give you a headache. Any inexperienced klutz suffering from advanced Parkinson would get steadier handycam images than the guy supposedly holding the thing during these exasperating 75 minutes. It's all a very poor Blair Witch rip-off. Add to that the prevailing darkness and half the time you simply haven't got a clue what you're looking at: as a viewer, I felt insulted. This isn't 'intriguing' or 'artistic' or 'novel', it's just sheer, lax arrogance. Avoid at all costs.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Garbled and unfocused

[4/10 · 19 July 2007]

To this non-reader of the book, the plot line in this film hardly made any sense at all. There is a great fuss about 'a prophecy' Voldemort needs to get his hands on, but what it is or why he needs it remains unclear almost until the end. And once found, it basically appears to dispense the tacky morale that Voldemort is the true weakling because he'll never know love or friendship. That eventually either he or Potter must die is again not an insight that seems to require any great prophetic gifts. Before these stunning pieces of wisdom are revealed, towards the finale of the movie, the viewer has sat through a prolonged but lame attempt to psycho-dramatize HP. Though Potter ended up as the hero in each of the previous movies, we here find him all of a sudden an inexplicable outcast, old friends suddenly picking fights with him. Are his buddies that fickle? Themes of loneliness and first love crop up, but are handled in a hackneyed and rather embarrassing way. There's much ado about The Kiss, yet at the first setback HP apparently drops his girlfriend like a brick, and without a question asked or a word of explanation offered. The adolescent shouting matches might have been just bearable hadn't the acting been so wooden.

Worse, the attempts at realism compromise the mood of magic and surprise that was maintained in one way or another throughout the previous installments. Moments of quasi art-house spareness and puerile introspection do not sit well with the undeniably dazzling visualizations of the magical world - even though some of the latter (the great hall with its magical ceiling; the moving paintings; the brooms etc.) do pale somewhat on their fifth outing. On the other hand the design of the Ministrry of Magic is spectacular to say the least.

Many characters merely seem to put in an appearance to remind us that they are still around. New characters do not generally improve matters. Helena Bonham Carter was better as the Corpse Bride; here, she merely overacts. Imelda Staunton, though, is a joy to watch and makes the most of the twisted Umbridge.

It all ends with a big wizard fight that looks like "Lord of the Rings meets The Matrix", and no doubt will satisfy viewers hungry for spectacle. None of it, though, struck me as particularly original, nor very exciting to be honest.

Inconsistencies abound, of course. I wondered how it was that nobody could see the thestrals except those "who have seen death", yet later on Ron and Hermione who couldn't see them before are suddenly flying on their backs. The idea of Umbridge letting herself be lured, all alone, into the woods by the youngsters whom she knows to be her sworn enemies is way of track. And if it is as easy to kill with a spell as we see here, why didn't Malfoy sr., or Voldemort, or Potter for that matter, die ages ago? As I see more of the movies, I not only wonder where it's all going, but I rather get the impression that Mrs. Rowling was wondering the same while writing it all. In the final reckoning, I'd rate OOtP below GoF, and way below PoA, which remains in my view by far the strongest installment to date.

Monster's Ball (2001)

Unbalanced

[5/10 · 20 June 2006]

This film tackles several highly charged themes at once (death penalty, racism, dysfunctional families, suicide), and inevitably stumbles in doing so. Dramatically it is seriously unbalanced by the accumulation of violent deaths and high drama in the gripping first half, offset by the highly undramatic and very intimate focus on the budding Berry-Thornton relationship in the second. Both parts are separated by a needlessly protracted and gratuitously explicit sex scene which I found rather tasteless and quite annoying. Halle Berry's performance is powerful, Thornton's less so; the one character that I felt truly involved with was Sonny, played impressively by Heath Ledger, but he vanishes from the scene after half an hour or so.

The final scene is so cliché that I couldn't believe my eyes - all of a sudden we're in Disneyland. In all, a film that is interesting for its prison scenes, but doesn't quite know where to go from there; apparently sincere in its intentions, the story just tapers off. Towards the end, my mind wandered.

Marie Antoinette (2006)

Overlong, boring and inaccurate

[3/10 · 4 June 2006]

Watching this movie, I was repeatedly reminded of the fifties "Sisi" trilogy starring Romy Schneider. Only, that had a plot. Here, all you get are the endless sweet-colored pictures, the occasional pomp&circumstance scenes, and the idealized, soft-focus versions of the real characters. And then all of a sudden (yet, still at least half an hour too late) it's all over, exactly at the point where the action, i.e., the Revolution starts. Okay, so Sofia Coppola was not aiming for a historically correct depiction of Marie-Antoinettes life. She must have realized that historical accuracy was not an option in a film that has Louis XVI's Parisians dancing in the foyer of an opera house that wasn't built for another 100 years. The question is, what WAS she aiming for? I must confess that I have no idea. Unless she was trying to convey to the viewer the boredom of the Queen's life. That worked - I was magnificently bored. The repetitive scenes of M-A's gambling, drinking and dressing are very colorful, but you fill up on them pretty quickly. The attempts at sketching a historical context are so perfunctory that I can't think why they bothered at all. And the much discussed use of pop music in the score is utterly random, a mere gimmick without any deeper meaning. There are no characters to identify with. Most of the cast never rises above caricature, with the gay hairdresser as the absolute nadir. Unbelievable that somebody still has the guts... Louis XV is not far behind, the acting verging on the amateurish. Dunst, too, has hardly more to offer than vague smiles, dimpled cheeks and perambulations in dazzling rooms; it is not like there is a script full of brilliant dialog that offers major acting opportunities. Instead, there's another box of shoes, another glass of champagne, another party. It's the cinematic variant of muzak. Anything positive? Well, one thing that is spot-on is the way the film shows how the lives of M-A and Louis were lived in public, and the often ridiculous and/or embarrassing consequences of this. Also, Coppola at least had the decency to grant M-A that she never actually said "let them eat cake". But it would have been so much nicer to see such accuracy embedded in a film that takes its subject seriously overall, and not merely uses it as an excuse to indulge visual sweet-tooths.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

This time, the magic only comes from the computer

[5/10 · 24 December 2005]

Let me begin by saying I haven't read any of the books, nor do I plan to, so I'm judging the film for what it is by itself. Basically, after having seen it twice, I remain unconvinced. It lacks the stylistic and narrative coherence of PoA, which remains easily the best of the 4 present HP movies. The first half of GoF in fact was a major disappointment: it seemed HP had fallen to the level of the next thirteen-in-a-dozen CGI action movie, and I expected Bruce Willis to turn op any moment. Sure, the special effects are more than a few notches up from the now endearingly clumsy efforts in part 1, but as we all know by now special effects alone don't make a movie. Fortunately, the second half is rather better. Beautiful imagery all through, and believable and touching emotions accompanying the much anticipated "Death". I wish, though, that Radcliffe and Watson would act with a little more spontaneity; maybe HP should stop clenching his jaws all the time? There is a lot of humor in GoF too, which in a way is nice, though incongruous at times. It's also a symptom of this movie trying to be too many things at once. The rock-band at the Xmas ball was one tongue in cheek joke too many, IMHO, and detracted from the believability of Hogwarts. Believability, on the whole, was my main problem with the film, and I suspect that may well be J.K. Rowling's fault rather than anyone else's. Of course the HP stories require "suspension of disbelief" - but that does not imply that all sense of logic and consistency can just be thrown overboard. Just a few of my niggles:

• HP is a wizard, isn't he? So why, at crucial moments, doesn't he use magic?

• *spoiler*: The whole point of the plot was to get HP over to the graveyard where Voldemort could get to him. For this aim Barty Crouch Jr. (alias Moody) has changed the Triwizard Cup into a "portkey". Why didn't he simply change any object HP would touch into a portkey? - he could have done without the entire tournament, it would have been so much quicker and easier!

• *spoiler*: Why, if Voldemort needs HP's living blood to revive himself, does he force him through a potentially deadly tournament?

• Prof. MacGonagall is deeply shocked when Moody turns Malfoy into a ferret to teach him a lesson - "We do not use transformation as a punishment"; yet she apparently sees no problem in sending several students into a potentially deadly contest.

• How come HP doesn't recognize Wormtail, whom he met in the previous episode as Peter Pettigrew?

Et cetera, et cetera. I'm also bothered by the "deus ex machina" device that Rowling constantly applies to get HP out of his predicaments - in this case, the sudden and unexplained appearance of his parents. It makes for very unsatisfying plots. The believability of Voldemort isn't helped either by making him into one of those verbose villains who are compelled to give a speech and explain, explain, explain, before coming to the point (after the hilarious gag made of this in The Incredibles, no movie-maker can afford this any longer). Why would an evil man like Voldemort bother?? (Nor could I believe in Crouch Jr as a villain, but that's due to the fact that I only knew David Tennant as the incredibly silly hypocrite Mr. Gibson in "He knew he was right"...)

All in all: good entertainment for viewers who like visual thrills and are focused or sleepy enough not to look too far beyond them.

Final Destination (2000)

Mildly entertaining, but silly and inconsistent

[4/10 · 24 October 2005]

The beginning is actually quite good, though not recommended for those with fear of flying. Main character Alex gets a vision of the plane he's in, and that's about to airlift him and his classmates to Paris, exploding. He panics, and together with some of his friends gets kicked off. Of course, the plane then explodes as foreseen. Alex has cheated Death. But as he finds out, this simply means that the survivors are still listed to die, and to be sure, soon enough one after the other gets killed in the gruesome and unlikely ways befitting, I suppose, of this genre. It's up to Alex to figure out Death's rules, and to thwart his plan. That's where things become silly. It is the usual problem in horror movies with supernatural forces: the supernatural world behaves so utterly banal and childish that it stops being scary. Why on earth would Death play a game like this? Logic is obviously thrown overboard entirely. Why would a girl who knows she's next in line to die, go outside in a raging thunderstorm where broken, live power lines are lashing about, to rescue her dog? How do Alex and his chums know so exactly where and how they can get into the morgue at night? Why does Alex repeatedly almost die when sheltering in a wood cabin, and why does the strange wind that presages a death blow through the cabin, even though Alex figures out a minute later that it isn't actually his turn yet? How come the three survivors eventually go on for six months without trouble, even though it turns out they are still scheduled to die? Did Death need a break?? I don't even care to wonder about the psychology of the characters, who are able to deal with one friend's gruesome death after another without shedding a single tear. Worst of all are the obligatory FBI men, who for some strange reason do not arrest a kid who is repeatedly found at the scene of violent deaths, and whose fingerprints are found on a knife sticking in a dead body. They do pick him up when a scared teacher sees him in her front yard, but then - ...just let him go again. Huh? And oh yes, of course: when they finally do decide to arrest him, in the middle of the night in a dark wood, they obviously turn on their sirens and lights, so that he can see and hear them coming a mile away, and has plenty of time to escape. In short: if you are feeling in the mood for something fairly dumb, with an occasional effective scare thrown in, as well as a few cute kids to look at, this will do. If you are looking for intelligent entertainment, look elsewhere.

The Powers That Be (1992–1993)

Brilliant society comedy - where's the DVD????

[4 October 2005]

This series was a shining jewel and a white raven amidst an overload of mediocre US sitcoms. Intelligent, witty, and hilariously funny, it contained brilliantly absurd, unforgettable one-liners (like hysterical Caitlyn's desperate observation: "Ventriloquism is tearing this family apart!"). While the wife (Holland Taylor) is obsessively trying to promote the senator's position in society, an ambition constantly undermined by her dysfunctional family, the senator himself (John Forsyth in a fabulous parody on Blake Carrington) is more interested in dallying with his secretary and socializing with his extramarital daughter. Valerie Maheffey as his daughter Caitlyn created one of the funniest comedy characters ever.

I had the presence of mind to tape most episodes when this series aired. But I most sincerely concur with a previous reviewer in wondering why, with so much utter c**p issued on DVD, this is still unavailable. Could somebody please change that?

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Not as authentic as the series, but thoroughly excellent in its own right!

[9/10 · 26 September 2005]

I went to see this film with a friend who, like me, is a confirmed addict of the BBc 1995 version of P&P. We were utterly prepared to dislike this new version (talk about prejudice...). And we both came out raving. Given the limitations inherent in a 2 hour running time, I find it hard to imagine a more enticing, entrancing way of bringing P&P to the screen. Authenticity is no option in such a time span - if you want close adherence to the book, stick with the series. The movie is not nearly as meticulously researched and takes ample liberties with the sense of propriety and etiquette that governed Austen's genteel circles. In fact, the approach taken in the film is contrasted to the TV-series in almost every aspect, but this has it own rewards. Whereas the series sticks to an authentically early 19th century idiom, and the intimate and provincial feel that is pure Austen, the movie inserts modern day phrases and emotions in Austen's text, and is altogether more worldly, cosmopolitan even. The people are more beautiful by our standards, even though I'm sure the BBC Lizzy and Jane are far closer to the type of woman that would have been considered very beautiful in Austen's days (just look at portraits from that time period). In the series the Bennet's are a seriously dysfunctional family with an aloof father and a hysterical mother, but with a sense of standing intact (as they are in the book); in the film they are a scruffy, chaotic, but lovable and, actually, loving bunch. Brenda Blethyn tones down Mrs. Bennet's madness to a level where she becomes a believable and even sympathetic character. It is not what Austen wanted her to be - her disgust of the character is obvious throughout the book. But it makes for a more involving movie experience. Donald Sutherland's Mr. Bennet is a pleasant surprise, too, even though the make up department might have made some effort to disguise the fact that he has a very good dental plan. Keira Knightley is an excellent Lizzy. Feisty, effervescent, and melancholy in turn, she gets you involved in the character right away. Nor does Matthew MacFadyen need to fear the competition from Colin Firth. He is as dark, brooding and intriguing a Darcy as you could wish for, and his sudden emotional outpouring when he first confesses his love (set amidst the wide rainy vistas of Rosings (in fact, Stourhead) park rather than in the intimacy of Hunsford parsonage) is totally gripping. The movie very much pivots on these two characters, and the achievements of these two actors ensure that the essence of the story is there, completely. Where you loose, inevitably, is in the minor roles. Tom Hollander is, again, a more humanly believable Mr. Collins than we got in the series, but he is also somewhat flat, and does not erase memories of David Bamber's bizarre, yet peculiarly endearing rendition (and, again, Austen meant for Collins to be a comic caricature). Lydia and Wickham are reduced to devices needed to unfold the plot, and even Judi Dench as Lady Catherine is relegated to such a position. Her final confrontation with Lizzy was to me the most disappointing scene from the movie, and is no match for the power Barbara Leigh-Hunt brought to this scene, that ought to feel climactic. (An aristocratic lady of those days, by the way, would never have had such a tan...). All this is more than compensated for by gorgeous imagery. Locations, costumes, crowd scenes, landscapes: they are all stunning. The two balls in the first half of the movie are way more festive, inviting and crowded than the understated formal occasions they are in the series - raucous, too; though again, the series is probably closer to the kind of atmosphere in which people like the Bennet's and the Lucasses would have moved. Burghley as Rosings and Chatsworth and Wilton as Pemberley are way over the top, of course - no matter how grand Mr Darcy and Lady Catherine may look from the Meryton perspective, they most certainly do not belong to the circles of high aristocracy that would in actual fact have lived in houses of that size and splendor. Again, the series is more authentic; but what a feast for the eye these locations offer in the movie! In the end comparing this to the 1995 remake is as pointless as the endless discussions between proponents of period performance in classical music versus those preferring big orchestral versions of Mozart and Beethoven with modern instruments. For Beethoven as Beethoven knew it, you need the former; but the latter can offer no less, and sometimes even more musically and emotionally rewarding experiences. Both are valid in their own way, and we have the luxury of not having to choose, but being able to enjoy both. All in all, and judged on its own merits as a movie, this P&P is wonderful, and very much worthwhile to go and see!

Vanity Fair (2004)

A lot of pretty pictures, but is has nothing to do with Thackeray

[3/10 · 21 May 2005]

If you hadn't gathered it from the movie itself, the bonus documentaries on the DVD will make it clear that this edition of Vanity Fair has at its root a fatal flaw. It attempts to portray Becky Sharp as a sympathetic, even admirable person. A plucky, Madonna-style powergirl. As a result, this is an extremely watered-down version of what Thackeray actually wrote. There is nothing nice about his novel, which is tremendously compelling and hilariously funny, but also coldly cynical. Becky is a brutal predator, who doesn't care a hoot about her child or her husband, and goes about exploiting everyone around her with the greatest zeal.She's closer akin to Hannibal Lecter than to Scarlet O'Hara. Reese Witherspoone's portrayal of the non-heroine blunts all the edges, and leaves us with a fairly uninvolving character whose motivations are not always easy to grasp. Other characters are similarly polished up. George Osborne isn't nearly as callous in his behavior to Amelia as he is in the novel. Dobbin is far too outspoken and powerful a figure whereas with Thackeray he is an utter wet noodle. The absurdity and cowardice of Jos Sedley is smothered in layers of oriental mystique. The dazzling Indian finale, shamelessly over the top, that we get by way of obligatory happy ending, would have us believe that Becky has gone off with him on a life of happy traveling, casting infatuated glances in his direction. In the book however, she simply leeches on him, and Jos besieges his acquaintances to protect him form her! "You don't know what a terrible woman she is". That woman is not in this movie. In this way, the film completely misses out on the essence of the story. It basically becomes a vehicle for a string of sumptuously executed pretty pictures. In the explicit attempt, voiced by Mira Nair herself, to bring the story to the screen as one relevant to modern audiences, rather than being just the next period piece, the exact opposite is achieved. This is beautifully executed but very tame and old-fashioned costume drama. Not even the ridiculous oriental dance scene starring Becky, which shows a complete lack of understanding of early 19th century mores, can change that. Of course, Thackeray's story needs no modernization at all - it is as recognizable today as it was 200 years ago. 130 minutes are not enough to do justice to the book either. All plot lines are reduced to their bare essentials; the psychology driving them is completely lost. One moment George Osborne is shunning Amelia, the next he marries her; one moment he is insulting Becky Sharp, the next he's inviting her to elope with him. At times it is almost as if you can hear the actors gasping for breath while hurrying along to get everything crammed in in the allotted time (two hours is already longer than most movie audiences can stand nowadays if the film isn't peppered with a proper barrage of CG special effects). That none of the acting stands out as particularly distinguished, with the exception of Eileen Atkins's portrayal of aunt Mathilda Crawley, is hardly surprising under these circumstances. Another thing that doesn't help believability is the fact that characters appear to have eternal youth. While we see toddlers growing up into adults, Becky, Amelia and others look exactly the same at the end of the movie as they did at the beginning. The one thing that may make this movie worthwhile to watch nonetheless, for some, is simply the visual beauty of it. Costumes, locations and sets are generally stunning, and the streets of London are teeming with people, animals and coaches. Given that the whole crew was even dragged to Jodhpur, India, to shoot a few minutes worth of footage, it is however hard to understand why the Brussels episode was shot in the courtyards of Hampton Court Palace, which constitute an unconvincing decor to anyone who knows what Belgian cities look like. What a strange experience it must have been for Natasha Little to play Jane Sheepshanks, the most goodly character in the story, and witness the insipid Becky of Reese Witherspoon, after having herself starred as the perfect embodiment of Miss Sharp in the BBC dramatization of the novel. That version is superior to this one on every count: it looks far more realistic, gives us the fleshed out characters in all their nastiness, stays close to Thackeray's sarcastic tone, and is in its own way just as beautifully visualized as this multimillion dollar project. If you want the next best thing to reading the book, the extra cost of that DVD is more than worth it.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Very silly

[12 October 2004]

I'm not averse to sensationalist disaster movies that have special effects as their main plot-motivation. I actually liked Independence Day. But at least that contained some humour. This movie takes itself so seriously that you're constantly aware exactly how silly it all is. Or have you ever seen a TV-anchor reporting live while standing a few hundred metres from not one, but TWO tornado's. I say, he deserved to get hit by that piece of debris!

The characters are all utterly uninvolving, so that you really don't care a hoot what happens to them. Random subplots are inserted to add interest, but fall completely flat. What's it with that sick boy the scientists wife is looking after? And oh yes, while the whole nation is crumbling under an unprecedented natural disaster, they're sending an ambulance through the blizzards especially to pick these two up...!? (Not to mention the army of helicopters flying into NYC to save daddy and son - as if that is all they have to do). The ship drifting into the NY streets is ludicrous, of course, but worked in a surrealistic way. The wolves however are the movie's worst idea, and badly done at that. I must say that in general I did not find the special effects particularly impressive, with the exception of the tidal wave flooding New York. All in all I found this pretty boring and instantly forgettable.

Angels in America (2003)

If you meet some requirements, you may find it the most moving thing you ever saw

[25 September 2004]

It seems to me that to be able to experience the full depth of this production, you need to meet a few requirements. First, you need to know that this is a PLAY. Like in any play, texts are delivered that you will not easily hear in everyday life (nobody makes up 'Antebellum Insufficiently Developed Sexorgans' as an alternative interpretation of AIDS during a split second in mid-conversation). Shakespeare isn't realistic in that way, Oscar Wilde isn't, Ibsen isn't, and nor is Tony Kushner. All of them are however extremely realistic in that they highlight essential aspects of the human condition in ways no other medium can achieve. Second, you need an ability to look beyond the surface. Reading reviews of AinA I'm stunned at how simplistically literal some people take it (maybe that explains why you've got Bush for president over there?). This play isn't about gays, it isn't about AIDS, it isn't about Jews and it isn't about Mormons. Its theme is the necessity for people to change, the scariness of change, while most of us would prefer to just let things stay as they are. That's what Louis Ironson wants and makes him run away from his sick lover (consider that: the superficially leftist intellectual is in fact a thorough conservative, more so than the apparently conservative Joe Pitt). That's what the angels want: unchangeable status quo; all the human history making tempted their god to leave heaven, and they want him back. This is the crux of AinA's undeniable political agenda: it sets out to show how conservatism of necessity thwarts and corrupts human nature. Oh yes, that's a third requirement: you really shouldn't belong to that curious group of people who consider the bible a god-given record of factual happenings rather than a piece of ancient mythology: you are likely to be shocked. Kushner's fantasies on biblical themes are very original indeed, and fit into a long tradition of reinterpreting ancient mythology in contemporary contexts. The church could learn a thing or two from him.

Personally, I was very deeply moved by the experience of watching this (as I was by the play nearly ten years ago). I'm sure that, unlike some people seem to think, you don't need to be like the gay men portrayed in AinA to be able to stand it, let alone like it (a ridiculous notion anyway: as a gay man I constantly watch movies about heterosexuals, and am often touched by them). I'm a Dutchman, I know New York only from a few brief visits, and though I'm gay my lifestyle has very little in common with that of the men in AinA; none of that prevented me from being deeply engrossed in this story. Its themes, as said, are universal (if you doubt that this play is essentially about YOU, the closing scene ought to convince you otherwise; if that scene makes you cringe, as I saw somebody complain, you've not really been watching). Its texts are wonderfully written, unafraid of pathos, farce and intellectualism alike, and fiercely direct in their expression. The acting of the whole cast is formidable. Pacino may be redoing previous roles (Devil's Advocate sprang to mind), but boy, does this Roy Cohn have clout, and in the end, how peculiarly difficult it is to really hate him… Patrick Wilson is the perfect pretty boy with a dark secret, and knows how to bring his torment across. Marie-Louise Parker at times has you wondering if she's really been taking pills (and I mean that as a compliment). There simply can't be another Louis than Ben Shenkman (that role was seriously miscast in the Dutch theater production I saw in '95), and Justin Kirk plays his taxing role with utter conviction. Jeffrey Wright goes all out on his ex-drag-queen-with-an-attitude character, and yet succeeds to remain believable as a person. Streep and Thompson are no less great, but I really feel the laurels in the end belong with Parker, Shenkman, Kirk and Wilson. To top it all off, the imagery is beautiful and full of fantasy, without going overboard on bloodless digital effects (it is still a play, remember). The atmosphere is often subtly and hauntingly unreal. And Thomas Newman's score – well, like any truly good music, words cannot do it justice.