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Back Catalogue: Reviews 9
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The Great Films - Visconti's "Death In Venice"
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The One That Got Away
The Matrix Reloaded
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Cert: 15
Directed By: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving

Talk about tough acts to follow: The original 1999 Matrix, a critical and commercial smash, came almost as a revelation out of nowhere. The Matrix Reloaded, the first of two sequels, faces a level of expectation that probably can't be met. Creating a satisfying sequel under any circumstances is rife with potential problems. Suffice it to say that writer-director brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski dodge many of these bullets, if not with quite so much grace as Neo. The film is hugely entertaining but, by necessity, not as fresh as its predecessor.

The Matrix Reloaded starts at some undefined time after the end of the first movie. The last transmission from a ship called the Osiris warns Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) that the machines are digging through the earth's crust straight down toward Zion, the last remaining human city. This snippet of information refers back to the animated short The Final Flight of the Osiris, which will appear with eight other shorts on the upcoming Animatrix DVD. But these films are not prerequisite to understanding the story.

Morpheus's Nebuchadnezzar and the other ships are ordered home to Zion to defend the city, setting off a series of internal political battles of strategy that constitutes the slowest part of the film. The problem is that there can be no direct connection to the Matrix from within Zion, and as in the first film, almost all the interesting stuff happens in the Matrix. Luckily the Wachowskis have contrived a reason for Morpheus and the gang to leave town, so the fun can begin again. However, the initial 45 minutes are a total yawn of esoteric gogitations and superficial psychotechno verbiage (twaddle to you and me).

However, once jacked in, Neo (Keanu Reeves) and crew receive instructions from the Oracle (the late Gloria Foster, who provides a likable human relief from the crew's often machinelike humans) that resemble a virtual-reality anorakie computer hackers' treasure hunt: Find this character/software module, so you can get instructions to the next character/software module, who will have information that will help you find this other crucial locale, which will tell you how to protect Zion. Or something. It's all very bring-me-the-broom-of-the-Wicked-Witch-of-the-West, with the fate of the world at stake.

Some of these developments increase our knowledge of what the Matrix is and how it works, but others feel like gratuitous plot embellishments, without the sense of necessity and inevitability that marked everything in the original. Almost nothing in the first film could be removed without damaging our eventual understanding; in Reloaded, there's lots of stuff that provides excitement or is simply, in and of itself, really cool, but could be written out. The ephemeral, dreadlocked albino twins, for instance: shades of Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice but blonded out...so what?

With the November release of part three, The Matrix Revolutions, however, these cavils may turn out to be incorrect. Maybe there is a more crucial metaphysical payoff to the twins and other new characters, like the Merovingean (Lambert Wilson), a snotty French avatar, and his frustrated wife (an ill- and under-used Monica Bellucci). But, so far, some of this stuff is reminiscent of Back to the Future 3, a perfectly okay film that nonetheless felt like an unnecessary tag-on.

Fight director Yuen Wo Ping provides his usual dazzling choreography, but that too feels both a bit compromised and a bit "been there, done that." If Neo fighting one Mr. Smith is great, that doesn't mean that Neo fighting 100 Mr. Smiths is 100 times as great - particularly when so much is accomplished through CGI and camera tricks.

It's a great thing that CGI frees stunt men from doing some really dangerous stuff now. But, injudiciously applied, it can rob an action sequence of all power. The best action scenes, even in sci-fi and horror flicks, are somehow rooted in reality.

Many Hong Kong movie fans disdain the use of wires and harnesses as unauthentic or even cheating. But even those tricks are not as far from reality as supernaturally speeded-up CGI simulations. The further we get from reality, the less thrilling the effect is. There simply is little genuine suspense in these scenes; the excitement is more the result of a physiological reaction to fast cutting, camera movement and sound effects than it is of empathetic investment in the characters.

Aggravating this is the more general "rule" problem: Who has the power to do what? And why? Why does Neo fight and fight the Smith army and almost lose several times when we know that, from the first punch, he could have simply done his Superman act and flown away? Why can he beat them? "Because he's the One and can do anything" isn't a good enough answer. If his powers are unbounded, then there's no suspense and no point to the entire thing. If they are bounded, we need to know how. The film's best action moments involve a motorcycle dodging between speeding cars, because these at least look real. The worst action moments involve Neo swooping down from the sky to pull someone out of harm's way. That Neo could be considered a deus ex machina may be a conscious joke on the Wachowskis' part, but it grows old.

The answers to some of these questions may be implicit in the computer mechanics that the Matrix represents: A fight could be two cyberentities - a software module and the neural impulses of a jacked-in human - "punching" to infect each other's code and "parrying" by mutating into immunity from that punch. The end of the first film suggested that Neo's power stems from his newfound ability to see the code, i.e., bits and bytes, behind the Matrix's "reality" and to therefore respond to what's really there rather than to the image.

But can anybody keep all this stuff in his or her head in a useful way, while watching the film?

The last few scenes include a baffling event that points toward a possible upcoming explanation in part three. We won't spoil it, but, if it's where we're heading - and it could be a total red herring - things could turn out to be either very satisfying or very irritating. Be forewarned that The Matrix Reloaded is really only half of a two-part story. Unlike The Matrix, it ends with a cliffhanger and represents less of an independent whole. (If you sit through the nine or so minutes of closing credits, you'll see a preview of The Matrix Revolutions.)

One final thing...Keanu...loosen up man, it's supposed to be a film and you are allowed to 'act' occasionally!

Dark Water

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Director Hideo Nakata
Writer Yoshihiro Nakamura, Ken-ichi Suzuki, based on the novel by Koji Suzuki
Stars Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi, Asami Mizukawa
Running time 101 minutes

When you see the corridors of the megalithic concrete apartment block, streaked with soot-tinged water and dappled with mildew, you realise two things: first, that Yoshimi Matsubara and her daughter, Ikuko (a superb performance from this young girl), aren't due for a happy stay, and secondly that Dark Water is going to live up to the hype. The plot is simple. A nervous mother, undergoing divorce proceedings, moves into an apartment building that is haunted by a young girl, who disappeared years earlier. It feels close to The Shining, with its terrifying atmosphere and spectral twins, but also not dissimilar to Ring, with its story of a scorned daughter, psychological breakdown and watery graves.

Its not particularly subtle. At no time are you mystified, as to the fate of the little girl, who haunts the building, or to the origin of the dripping water from the ceiling. However, it still manages to build to a terrifying, if obvious, conclusion. This is the new feature from the writer/director combination that brought us Ring, and its almost as good. It manages to get you onto the edge of your seat for almost the entire duration, tension heightened through the use of dark industrial music, sliding strings and monotone locations, glistening with dark water.

However, this is just another horror movie, albeit an effective one. It doesnt have the depth, or intrigue of Ring, and yet is satisfyingly unpleasant at times - you will only drink bottled water after this - with scenes that will have you screaming at the naivety of the heroine, as she wanders down dark, dripping corridors without turning on the lights.

The Truth About Charlie

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Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newto, Tim Robbins, Ted Levine , Joong-Hoon Park, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Christine Boisson, Anna Karina and Stephen Dillane.

Director: Jonathan Demme

Near the end of The Truth About Charlie, two characters dash madly after the film's McGuffin, first via subway, then on foot. They finally engage in a rough-and-tumble struggle on a staircase, before they're individually yanked back to the landing in humiliation. It's one of several moments in which the playfulness of the scene never quite masks the seriousness beneath, which would suggest the handywork of director Jonathan Demme even if he weren't listed in the credits. Charlie shares that tone with its source material, Stanley Donen's 1963 film Charade, a Hitchcockian thriller that plays light and loose until it turns deadly.

Even given the daunting task of remaking a well-loved film that starred Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, the director would have a hard time finding a vehicle better suited to the sensibility he brought to Married To The Mob and Something Wild. With Charlie, Demme seems aware of that - maybe a bit too aware, since he's made a film so frothy and energetic that the fun starts to exhaust itself after a while. Stepping into the Hepburn role with an abundance of grace, Thandie Newton plays a woman who returns to Paris from a Caribbean holiday intending to become a divorcee, but fated to discover she's a widow instead. After coming home to a ransacked apartment, Newton is whisked to a police interrogation, shown a handful of passports bearing her late husband's picture and a string of unfamiliar names, asked a series of questions she can't answer, and let loose to the wilds of Paris, where shadowy figures take an aggressive interest in the few possessions in her shoulder bag. Fortunately, or so it would seem, she has two people looking after her: handsome stranger Mark Wahlberg and Tim Robbins, beautifully playing a hilariously stiff man who claims to be an American agent.

This may sound confusing, but keeping the story straight is less of a concern than sorting through the possibilities it presents. Charlie takes place not in the Paris captured by Donen, but in the one created by the French New Wave. Demme piles on the references, giving cameos to Agnès Varda, Anna Karina, and, most memorably, cabaret singer Charles Aznavour. Even without them, the line of influence would be clear. Though indisputably a thriller, Charlie abandons itself to little cinematic rhapsodies, self-reflexive asides, and montages of Paris locations cued to a soundtrack of cool French pop (Gotan Project etc), all of which often seems more vital than the main order of business.

Eventually, that business gets in the way, as the story asserts itself while winding down to a less-than-thrilling climax, and Wahlberg repeatedly proves to be so far out of his range. (He should seem dapper and conniving, but instead acts like he hasn't shaken his confused-astronaut character from Planet Of The Apes.) Long stretches of Charlie combine charm and suspense to remarkable effect, but the attempts to sustain a tone of romantic abandon would succeed much better if an interrupted mood and a broken one weren't pretty much the same thing.

The Last Great Wilderness
Rating: 18
95 mins.
David MacKenzie Director
Gillian Berrie Producer
Laurence Gornall Executive Producer
Steven McIntyre Executive Producer
Christopher Pigott Executive Producer

Cast:
Alastair Mackenzie
Jonny Phillips
David Hayman
Ewan Stewart
Victoria Smurfit
John Comerford
Sheila Donald
Ford Kiernan

This is the tale of two oddballs stuck in a sleepy Scottish town out in the middle of nowhere. The romantically jilted Charlie (Alastair Mackenzie) is headed to a remote location in the Highlands to burn down the house of the celebrity that stole his girlfriend away from him.

On the way, he is forced to give a ride to a pseudo-Spaniard named Vincente (Jonny Phillips) who is on the run after sleeping with a violent thug's wife. En route, the car breaks down and the men are forced to stay at the Moor Lodge - home to a group of similarly odd people that Charlie and Vince soon find themselves compelled to learn more about.

Sound intriguing? Don't get too excited.... It never fails to amaze me how some people get the required finance to make a film based purely on a thin synopsis and two or three well-kent faces to bolster the PR of the production. The reality is that "The Last Great Wilderness" is 90+ minutes of total guff, underdeveloped characters, a flimsy premise, echoes of umpteen previous (better) movies - and poor performances from normally reliable thesps such as Hayman, Stewart and Kiernan, who really should know better. Give this a wide berth, it's a sad attempt that fails on virtually every level - and as for the soundtrack - The Pastels? Come on!

Hope Springs

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Screenwriter-Director: Mark Herman
Producer: Barnaby Thompson
Executive producer: Uri Fruchtman
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Don Taylor
Music: John Altman
Cast:
Colin Ware: Colin Firth
Mandy: Heather Graham
Vera: Minnie Driver
Joanie Fisher: Mary Steenburgen
Doug Reed: Oliver Platt
Fisher: Frank Collinson
Running time -- 92 minutes

All of the elements seem to be in place for this romantic comedy - an attractive and talented cast, witty script, nice direction and glorious locations. But somehow it can't make the leap from an enjoyable light film to a movie to remember.

Director/Screenwriter Harman has adapted the 2001 book "New Cardiff" by Charles Webb, best remembered from his 1962 debut novel, "The Graduate." The script closely follows the story of a disillusioned Englishman who heads to the picturesque New England town of Hope.

Colin Ware (played with real charm by Colin Firth) is an illustrator, recently dumped by his fiancee, Vera (Minnie Driver), who sends him an invitation to her wedding to another man. He thus arrives heartbroken and jet-lagged in this charming small American town, featuring a sign reading, "18,459 people live in Hope."

Joanie (Mary Steenburgen), the matchmaking landlady of the local motel, promptly introduces him to Mandy (Heather Graham), a trained "caregiver" who works at the local old folks home. Before long, she has broken through his grief and introduced sex into his life. Soon he is planning a series of pencil portraits of locals.

The fly in this romantic ointment comes in the form of Vera, who arrives in Hope to announce the wedding invitation was just a joke to try to get Colin to commit to life with her and now attempting to lure him to return with her to England. This all, of course, leads to a heady triangle of love, jealousy and confusion with Colin forced to make a few difficult life decisions.

The early scenes of Colin arriving in Hope feel heavy-handed - uncomfortable Greyhound bus, stumbling jet lag, etc. shows Firth obviously ill at ease playing more physical comedy. Later in the story, the script's wit and his impressive line delivery carries the film. Firth certainly has the charm and style to be a romantic lead, but too often here he has to be dry and sour. It is quite a presumption upon the cinema audience to believe he can change so dramatically.

Graham's role as Mandy allows her to be little more than a warmhearted local girl with only hints of problems from her past slipped into the script. As with many of her films, she is down to her underwear within half an hour. While this is a very attractive proposition, her seduction of Colin feels telegraphed and clumsy.

As a contrast, Driver as vampish Vera gets to wear the designer gear and come out with an array of barbed lines. Whether railing about her inability to smoke anywhere in town or verbally abusing aging golfers, Driver does a great job in showing Vera as a smart, contriving woman. She also manages to get down to her underwear as she tries to seduce Colin, proving it is not just Heather Graham territory.

Herman does a fine job but can't make the story leap from a lightweight, endearing film to a really fine romantic comedy. His direction is efficient, and he makes good use of the locations in British Columbia (nicely doubling for New England). The casting of Oliver Platt, as the town's mayor, and Steenburgen is inspired, with both bringing class and laughs to the proceedings.
Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind
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Directed by George Clooney
Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman
Produced by Andrew Lazaar

Cast: Sam Rockwell
George Clooney
Drew Barrymore
Julia Roberts
Rutger Hauer

113 mins Cert 15
While screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation is getting all of the notice, his adaptation of Chuck Barris' Confessions of a Dangerous Mind deserves significant acclaim for the way in which it transports Barris' "unauthorized autobiography" to the screen without losing any of the edgy brilliance that the book evoked.

The film begins in 1981, near the end of Barris' story and is told primarily in flashback with occasional flashes to Barris in 1981. Those familiar with Chuck Barris (played by Sam Rockwell) might know of him as the host of The Gong Show. However, to remember him for that programme does a disservice to his legacy. The true father of reality television, Barris invented The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, The Gong Show, and a number of other series, all of which had varying levels of success. In addition, Barris penned the hit single "Palisades Park," while working for ABC as an overseer on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. He also composed the themes for all of his television shows.

And if you believe Chuck Barris, that is only half the story of his life. In his autobiography, Barris claimed that his career as a television producer was a perfect cover for his other job: CIA assassin. As the story unfolds, Barris encounters Jim Byrd (George Clooney, who also directed the film) an employee from the Office of Diplomatic Security--better known as the CIA--who recruits the producer. Barris decides to take the job, lured as much by the idea of having sex with Eastern European women he thinks he will encounter while pursuing his missions as he is by patriotic duty to his country.

In a career-making performance, Rockwell becomes Barris. His mannerisms, look, and voice are eerie at times, especially during scenes that take place on the set of The Gong Show when he dances and moves like the real Barris did, capturing his pain with real pathos.

The supporting cast is equally impressive. Drew Barrymore is Penny, Barris' on-and-off love interest who sticks with him inexplicably and gives him last chances constantly. Her undying love for Barris translates into a goofy charm that makes her character both likeable and believable. But Clooney himself totally chews up the screen with his subtle performance. Julia Roberts plays the mysterious Patricia, an agent who is often Barris' contact when the producer is assigned a job. Rutger Hauer, also appears in a minor role as Keeler, a German spy.

In his directorial debut, Clooney does a terrific job at elucidating the Barris story. He has learned a great deal from observing executive producer Steven Soderbergh (who had directed his past two films) and steals some of Soderbergh's tricks, such as mixing film stocks and oversaturating certain shots. While he overuses a few effects (such as panning from the set of a recreated Gong Show to archival video footage from actual episodes which is seen on monitors), he redeems himself by inserting interview clips from former Barris associates like Dick Clark, Jaye P. Morgan, and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. Clooney also takes advantage of his star connections by getting some of his celebrity friends to make cameos during a Dating Game scene.

While many will question whether Barris' CIA stories are true or a figment of his vivid imagination, few can argue that Barris has never received the credit he truly deserves for the impact that he made on the American television landscape. Barris understood that many people wanted nothing more than their 15 minutes of fame and would do anything to achieve it. Kaufman's terrific adaptation does a great job of telling Barris' compelling, if somewhat unbelievable tale.

A fantastic ride that will leave you with a huge grin on your face (thanks to a terrific closing interview), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a great film. Fun, funny, clever, and well-written, one can only hope that this film gets the credit that it truly deserves - it really is one of the most enjoyable cinematic journeys of the year.