PREFACE
This is the sporadically updated blog of reviews by Harriet, author of In the Aquarium: a londoner's life.
I have kept the reviews separate to enable them to be indexed and therefore more easily accessible (see listing below).
FAVE FILMS DEAD MAN What an idea, the man is dying for almost the entire length of the film, the music is fantastic, its black and white, ideology, mythology, funny, sad, Johnny Depp sex god...
THE DRAFTMAN'S CONTRACT The first Peter Greenaway film I saw and possibly the most accessible. Beautiful set, costumes, direction. Fantastic soundtrack.
MULHOLLAND DRIVE I knew exactly what was going on right up until the last 15 minutes and damn it but then I lost it.
NIGHT ON EARTH Jim Jarmusch made the only film with Winona Ryder worth watching and it had Beatrice Dalle (say no more)
O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Roar out loud with laughter and tunes that make you love country music. My sister had to sneak out of the cinema ahead of our dad and me cos she was so embarrassed at our laughing.
ORLANDO Quiet, passionate, time travel.
PITCH BLACK Bails and I watched this with its bleached scenery and its whoar factor star. We LOVED him, Mr Diesel take a bow.
RESERVOIR DOGS Tight Tarantino gang heist gone wrong. Great soundtrack. And there's something about Michael Madson, dancing just before cutting off the cop's ear...
ROMUALD ET JULIETTE Truely lovely romance comedy.
THREE COLOURS TRILOGY Blue, White and Red. I liked them all. Quiet stories, beautifully shot.
THE USUAL SUSPECTS Its a story told. And the first time I saw it I didn't get the twist until just before it happened.
Seen The Reviews
Monday 27 October 2003 Mariza The Fado Curvo Tour Royal Festival Hall
So what is fado? "Fado is not music, fado is a feeling, I think. I do a lot of shows outside Portugal, thanks God, and the most part of the audience don't know what I'm saying, but they feel it. I saw persons crying in my shows! I can't tell you fado is a sad song. It's not a sad song, it's a melancholic song." From an edited verson of an article by Jon Lusk. Full article first published in fRoots magazine (sadly not available online).
The music was melancholy but also very moving in a way that appeals to the inner body. Makes you want to dance (shame we had to be sitting down in the Royal Festival Hall). Something about guitars that tweak that thing in you - feels very gypsy and very accomplished at the same time. Romantic and daring. Mariza's huge voice, emotional, emotive. Great.
So the trailers of this looked ok. Its rated 12A. Should've known really.
There's a niche of film making which is aimed at the 12-15 year old male market. I've seen a couple of these. I'm not counting regular comic book heros in this category (although this market would like these films as well) because they have to appeal to their whole readership including those males who long since passed the age group. The previous films that I saw that I thought this about were The Mummy Films (action, thin story, one liners and just the right amount of romance - i.e. not much but with a gorgeous long haired woman).
So anyway, this film is based on graphic novels by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. It starts in London - a london from 1899 where it always rains and is dark and grey. Its drawn. Nicely drawn but it makes the film feel two dimensional. Coupled with the rather two dimensional character development it probably fits quite well.
And then there's the thing of having to dispell your disbelief. I was finding my ability to do this was being rather stretched. There were fantastic literary characters with special talents, and they could all fight, and the technology that was invented was remarkable - batmobilesque car, submarine like the blade of a knife etc. And I think I could have believed it all if they hadn't put the date up at the beginning of the movie. It was like when I went to see Madame Butterfly sung in English with the words going across the top of the stage - you had to believe that a 35 year old opera singer with a traditional opera singer's physique was a 15 year old virgin. It was just stretching it a bit too far and the reality kept slipping back into my mind.
It passed the time well enough. It had some good drawing and some great sets. But I'm getting tired of all fight scenes looking the same, making much use of martial arts.
There is something about reading a graphic novel that makes you believe in what they are showing you - its like a sci-fi book - you let yourself be drawn in because of the characterisation and the addition of your brain in the interpretation of the pictures or text. With film it needs to ring true to some degree for you to believe it.
Oh and one last thing - on the website it asks you to pick your language - top choice: North American English, second choice: Non-North American English. I mean - since when was North American English a language in its own right? I couldn't see any decernable differnce in the language of the two different choices either (yes I know I know its about where the site is downloading from, but really that wasn't the question it asked).
Sunday 19 October 2003 The Weather Project Tate Modern
The last two days I have been to see Olafur Eliasson's installation in the turbine hall of the Tate Modern.
Something about the sun makes people sit or lye down and worship it even though it isn't real. As they move towards it they have to sheild their eyes against the glare. The misty air makes the shine physical in the space. People walking towards the light look like aliens on a far away planet, reminiscent of the end sequence in Close Encounters of the Third Kind - misty creatures back lit by an orb. Can't quite tell if they are human or spacemen.
And then you start to look at the way it is all constructed. Bright lights behind a screen creating the sun. Only half the sphere is there. A ceiling of mirrors have been placed the full length of the turbine hall - making the space seem larger than usual. The half sphere appears to be whole becuase of the mirror. You see the entire space, including the mirror image space as one huge room.
And then you start to look at the reflections. All the sunworshippers are reflected back at themselves in the mirrored ceiling. Some are transfixed by their own image and what they look like far far away up there. They start to wave and do star jumps lying down. Three young men yesterday put on a whole performance of running chases, back spins, swimming, sliding movements. For their own amusement and anyone else who was watching's. Today people mostly looked at themselves. One group made a star and opened and closed their legs like a 30s dance sequence in a film - synchronised swimming without the water.
Thursday 16 October Down With Love Wood Green Cineworld
Again a depiction of an era. Very stylised, captured it very well including the offices, interiors, clothes and New York. Doris Day twists and turns. Who's tricking who. Funny. Fluffy.
Thursday 16 October Bright Young Things Wood Green Cineworld
Interesting film, lush and rich set, depiction of a glamerous era that seemed to be more surface than substance and successful in that respect. Lots of English actors. Not a great film but a decent enough story. A bit like a Victorian novel that you had to read at school - full of the morals of love and not being able to be with the one you want due to circumstances, and then love wins out. Sort of. Happy and sad. Heady days leading to a fall.
Sunday 5 October 2003 Once Upon a Time in Mexico Warner Village, Islington
It was a modern day western with the FBI and the CIA. Lots of dark greasy haired men walking around with intent with guns blazing. Climbing up walls and playing guitars. Johnny Depp master of disguise and weird kind of orchestrator of the action. Antonio Banderas playing the guitar and on a revenge killing spree.
I laughed. It passed the time. Not exactly a masterpiece or a classic.
The saga of the mythic guitar-slinging hero, El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas), continues in Robert Rodriguez’s bold, non-stop action epic ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO.
The new adventure is set against a backdrop of revolution and greed. Haunted and scarred by loss, El Mariachi (Banderas) has retreated into a life of isolation. He is forced out of hiding by Sands (Johnny Depp), a corrupt CIA agent. Sands recruits the reclusive hero to sabotage a plot by the evil cartel kingpin Barillo (Willem Dafoe), who is planning to assassinate the president of Mexico. El Mariachi has his own reasons for returning – retribution and revenge.
Now, together with his capable cohorts Lorenzo (Enrique Iglesias) and Fideo (Marco Leonardi) the legend of El Mariachi attains new levels of excitement.
Shot, Chopped and Scored by Robert Rodriguez
Produced by Elizabeth Avellán Carlos Gallardo Robert Rodriguez
