where you going?
nowhere

who are you going with?
no one

when will you be back?
later



























 
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).


ARCHIVES
Read other reviews here










BACK TO
In the Aquarium


CONTACT ME



 


REVIEW LISTING



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Citroen C4


CINEMA
Ballet Russes
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Bright Young Things
Brokeback Mountain
Broken Flowers
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Capote
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlies Angels 2
Confidences Trop Intimes (Intimate Strangers)
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Riddick
Crash
Creep
The Da Vinci Code
The Day After Tomorrow
Derailed
Down With Love
ENRON: the smartest guys in the room
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Family Stone
Fantastic Four
Finding Nemo
The Forgotten
Four Brothers
Good Night, and Good Luck
Gothika
The Grudge
Hidden (Caché)
Hitch
Hotel Rwanda
House of the Flying Daggers
Howl's Moving Castle
The Incredibles
In the Cut
Into the Blue
The Island
Kill Bill Volume 1
Kill Bill Volume 2
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The Libertine
Lost in Translation
Love Actually
Lucky Number Slevin
Match Point
The Matrix Reloaded
Mission Impossible 3
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Out of Time
Pride and Prejudice
The Producers
The Proposition
Secret Window
Sin City
Starsky and Hutch
S.W.A.T
Syriana
Transamerica
Unleashed
V for Vendetta
Walk the Line
X-Men 2
Yours, Mine and Ours


SHORTS
Tony Scott's Beat the Devil
Gold


PALM SPRINGS 17th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
JED reviews thirty films that he saw from the 250 films shown during the festival.
Adam and Steve
a/k/a Tommy Chong
Blush
Border Café (Café Transit)
Boynton Beach Club
Buffalo Boy (Mua Len Trua)
Changing Times (Les Temps qui changent)
Chicken Tikka Masala
Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus)
Cold Showers (Douches Froides)
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Favela Rising
Fuego: John Waters presents Movies that will Corrupt You
George Michael - a different story
Gimme Kudos (Qiuqiu Ni, Biaoyang Wo)
Gold
Joyeux Noel
Lost and Found
Low Profile
March of the Penguins
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
My Best Enemy
News from Afar
Odete
Persona non grata
Queens
Simon
That Man: Peter Berlin
Two sons of Francisco
Whole New Thing
A Year Without Love


COMEDY
Big Night Out, Comedy Pub 29 Jan 2005
Downstairs at the Kings Head, 1 Oct 2004


DANCE
Edward Scissorhands
Fuerzabruta
Onegin
Play Without Words


EXHIBITIONS
After the wave: tsunami remembered
Art Deco 1910 - 1939
Brancusi: the essence of things
Bruce Nauman - Raw Materials
Catherine Sullivan - The Chittendens
Dan Flavin - A Retrospective
Dreamspace
Invisible @ Corsica Arts Club
Rachel Whiteread - Embankment
The Weather Project
The Weather Project Revisited


MUSIC
CLASSICAL
Yuri Bashmet - Great Performers
Philip Glass - Orion


ROCK/POP/etc
Country Teasers
Little Barrie
Pete Rock
Pimp
Salt Perverts
Tiger Lillies
Tiger Lillies, Ether Series 2006


WORLD
Klezmer Swingers
Mariza
X-Bloc Reunion Festival


OPERA
Faust
The Handmaid's Tale


PERFORMANCE
Carnesky's Ghost Train
Immortal
Immortal2
Sticky


THEATRE
Cyrano de Bergerac
Edmond
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum
His Girl Friday
Julius Caesar
Lifegame
Man Falling Down
Playing with Fire
Stuff Happens
Underground
We Will Rock You


TELEVISION
Lost




COPYRIGHT
All content (words and images)
© Harriet Duncan
1997-2005
(unless explicitly quoted or credited)
Please link if you quote and ask permission to use images.

READ ME (disclaimer)






LINKS - elsewhere

100 Word Reviews
Armchair Critic
Arjan Writes
Clark Schpiell Prodcutions

Guardian Arts Reveiws
Guardian Film Reveiws
Glazed Donuts
Jailhouse Reviews

Movie Bums
Plot Kicks In
re:mote voices
Reviews Reviews Reviews!






BLOGS

Spearbearer Down Left
The Diogenes Club



«#Blogging Brits?»

Listed on Blogwise
Blogarama - The Blog Directory





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
 
 

Thursday 27 November 2003
Yuri Bashmet - Great Performers
Barbican Hall


Yuri Bashmet plays the Viola. He came on stage for the first piece in a simple chinese style jacket and played Bach's Suite No 1 in G for cello, BWV 1007(arranged for viola by Fritz Spindler). He then went off and brought on Mikhail Muntian to play the piano and they played Brahms' Viola Sonata No 2 in E flat, Op. 120. The stage looked very wooden because it was a little bit dull. I felt like we were engaged in an evenings entertainment from the 18th century. After the interval they played Shostakovich's Viola Sonata, Op 120. This was different. It was hauntingly sad. Some of it was plucked, very quiet but built to larger sound. Very beautiful but it could bring tears if I was in a particular frame of mind.


11:02 PM


 

Wednesday 12 November 2003
Kill Bill
Woodgreen Cineworld


So the second part of the double bill (snuck into this film after seeing In the Cut) was this. It starts and doesn't let up until it ends. It leaves you ready for the next part and you know what is going to happen in the next two. So its about revenge. Its about taking revenge that is in line with the crime. We know why she does it. We know how she comes to want to do it. And its bloody in the style of japanese cartoons - gushing and spurting blood from lopped off arms and heads, fountains of the stuff. And its fight to the death. And girls fight each other (much for the men here). And there's witty one liners. And there's fight choreography in the tradition of kung fu movies - one girl manages to kill oh easily several hundred men with her samurai sword, and she can leap tall buildings and bounce off the walls.

And then it ends, and you can breathe again.

And I was left with one question which I still haven't yet answered in my head - what is the meaning of decapitation - what does it mean to cut someone's head off either to the perpetrator or to the victim? Both these movies feature a good deal of it although with completely different results and for different reasons. We think of medieval guillotining, "off with her head", samurai warriors honorable ways to die, serial killers keeping trophies of their kills, head hunters, head shrinkers etc etc.

Official Movie Site
Tarantino: return of the movie maverick
Tarantino Interview


12:28 AM


 

Wednesday 12 November 2003
In the Cut
Woodgreen Cineworld


So Meg Ryan is the most dour faced limp haired sex maniac in New York. She has chosen inappropriate sexual partners who hound her and then when she inadvertently witnesses the last blow job a girl ever gave before being killed by a serial killer she spends a lot of time with a police officer with the same tattoo as the man they suspect of killing the girl. So naturally she sleeps with him becuase theres sexual tension despite the fact she can't put it out of her head that he's the killer. Her sister lives over a lap dancing club with a transvestite doorman. Fairly graphic, good tension but ultimately very unbelievable and a little bit obvious. Still its a step out of character for Meg. Dark and dreary portrayal of NY also.

Movie Website


12:28 AM


 

Tuesday 4 November 2003
We Will Rock You
Dominion Theatre


I would never have chosen to see this because I am a culture snob. I am willing having sat through this to fully admit it without reservation. However when asked by a best friend and with a ticket bought for me I agreed to see a musical despite my reservations.

Lets say the acting was somewhere between wooden, old style theatrical over-acting, pantomime, school play enthusiasm and carry-on movie. Singing was considered to be good if it were belted out (much audience appreciation). Emotion in the singing was demonstrated by bounciness or falling to the floor. Choreography was lazy. Dancing mediocre apart from one gay dancer (he looked it and danced like it but that could of course be a generalisation, so please forgive me if you are in any way offended by this remark) who was enjoying himself immensly and stood out by miles. To say the plot was thin is stretching it, you could say the plot were emaciated.

The very best bit was as the whole thing started and lots of spots were shone around the theatre by two giant glitter balls. After that the set was sparse.

It was like a cross between a poor man's Handmaid's tale and a poor man's Footloose and Footloose wasn't good the first time round. Kids will overcome the world because they must ROCK! And to be rockers you must look like punks - this rule will stand even in the year 2365.

Give me a C, give me an R, give me an A, give me a P. What have we got....

At the end the majority of the audience gave a standing ovation. What I couldn't figure out was why. I can understand that people want to come to the theatre for a good time, they want to feel like they have had their money's worth. But does that mean they have to know all the songs beforehand? I would rather watch a Kylie video for its finesse and pomp, choreography and tune.

So that'll be a thumbs down then.


11:42 PM


 
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