I Vitelloni (1953)

Now this is much more my speed.  It was the only Fellini film that I had not seen previously; I remember well the one time that BBC2 did a Fellini season some years ago when I fell in love with his talent.  This particular film was being shown on a night when I was away at a conference and by the time I got back to my room only the closing minutes were left -- and I never managed to catch up.  Now I have!  The title is translated as "Spivs" but this is a poor translation; a more appropriate one would be 'layabouts' as it follows a group of five young men in their twenties who are still living at home (very Italian) and not making much of their lives.  It is set in Rimini which was Fellini's hometown and serves as an early template for his brilliant "Amarcord" some twenty years later.  While only his third film after working with the post-war realist directors, traces of what would eventually be described as Felliniesque are in evidence: love of the music hall and entertainers, well-cushioned females, weak men and strong women. Not necessarily the best of his films by a longshot but a necessary part of the canon from Pretty Pink's point of view.

Walk the Line (2005)

I'm just back from a preview of this Johnny Cash biopic and it probably would help if  I were a fan of his music which is quite OK but no more to me.  The surprise was that the movie held my attention for the two hours plus running time despite the formulaic story of bad boy musician finally gives up the pills and booze for love.  Joaquin Phoenix really wears the role and despite never having warmed to him in the past, I can't think of another actor who could have played the part with such uncanny success.  The real treat was Reese Witherspoon playing his love, June Carter, whom he met when they were both married and who stood by him through the bad times.  The fact that they both did their own singing rather than just mouthing the songs helped make this film and the chemistry between the two leads when they were performing was perfectly believable.  I always considered her a pretty nifty young actress and am pleased to see her talent being recognized this award season.

Chiwhaseon (2002)

I'm not deliberately watching a lot of Korean films of late, it just seems to be happening.  I knew that this movie shared the director's prize at Cannes and that it starred the actor out of "Oldboy", so I was looking forward to it.  It's a biopic of one of the great Korean artists from the 19th Century who unlike others of his time came from very humble origins and was therefore deemed not noble enough to paint with the genius that he did.  The artwork and framing of the cinema image were brilliant, but against this one had to contend with a very hard-to-like character who depended on drink and rough sex for his inspiration.  It was also difficult to keep track of the various subsidiary characters as he moved around from patron to patron and whore to whore.  I found the film consistently interesting but can't quite decide whether I really want to own a copy -- and I suspect that the answer may well be no, although I could well return to the film in the future.

The Verdict (1982)

I've always kind of liked Paul Newman without considering myself a fan as such and I am surprised to realise that some of his better films are not in my collection; I'm talking about movies like "Hud" and "Cool Hand Luke" where I can admire his performance without having any real desire to view them with any frequency.  In fact, only "The Hustler", "The Prize" and "Torn Curtain" from the first part of his career make the cut.  However like fine wines, Newman does seem to improve with age, possibly because he never took himself too seriously as an actor.  Anyhow I found myself watching the above movie and was quite taken with the sincerity of his performance.  He plays a washed-out lawyer turned ambulance-chaser due to the demon drink, until he takes on a seemingly hopeless case through which he achieves redemption.  His courtroom adversary is the very wonderful James Mason in one of his last roles and  the quiet fireworks between them are a wonder to behold -- no overacting where a simple gesture will suffice.

Studio Ghibli season

I've now viewed another three anime, two of them by Miyazaki, and generally I am happy to have seen them.  I'd be happier still if two of the three hadn't been dubbed.  At least the American voices were credited on Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) and Kiki's Delivery Service (1989). (Incidentally I saw a DVD of the latter in the shops within a few days of viewing it and a Japanese sound-track is definitely available -- so shame on FilmFour who claim to show films as they were made -- ho ho ho.)  The third which Miyazaki only produced was in the original Japanese which somehow added to my pleasure -- that film was Only Yesterday (1991) and was a kind of love story as a young woman looked back on her troubled childhood.  In fact all three movies had girls or youngish women as their heroines as did Nausicaa and as do Miyazaki's most recent releases -- so Studio Ghibli is unafraid of depicting the world through female eyes whereas Disney chose fit to change Chicken Little from female to male!!

At lease three more Ghibli films are scheduled over the next week or so and despite the drawbacks I do look forward to furthering my education.

Tell Me Something (1999)

Went to the ICA to see this Korean serial killer flick whose title in Korean is "Telmisseomding" -- whether this means anything or is a phonetic transcription of the English title is a mystery, since there was nothing whatsoever to link the action to English -- French yes, English no.  Anyhow that's by the by, albeit weird.  The story concerns a slightly disgraced cop who is put in charge of a murder investigation where the killer leaves body parts in lashings of blood in black plastic sacks -- however not all the parts come from the same body.  That part of it was very gory indeed which somehow didn't quite sit with the atmospheric filming -- it seems to rain in thick sheets as much in Korea as it does in Kurosawa's Japan.  The film was well made and well-cast but too long in its leisurely exposition and probably had one twist too many at the end.  Yes, having twigged the mystery to my satisfaction, this viewer then was thrown off balance by having an alternate solution presented in the closing minutes -- which if one thought back on what one had seen before didn't quite wash.  Nevertheless, an interesting failure. 

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring (2003)

I thought I knew what to expect from this Korean film from the clips I had seen and thought it would be a meditation on the beauty and tranquility of life over the successive seasons.  Well not quite.  First of all there were substantial time gaps between the five sections of the film and secondly it did not follow the same characters in each section.  Spring with an elderly monk and his young disciple segued into Summer with the same monk and the much older disciple.  Similarly by the end we were left with a monk and his young charge -- but two different people.  Also given the ravishing beauty of the images, I was not expecting scenes of sexual activity, police investigations, self-immolation , and sudden death-- all present.  I think the message that life continues albeit in different forms remains clear and I feel that this is a film that my mind might well drift back to over the months ahead.

Seven Beauties (1975)

I've wanted to see this Italian picture forever, so when I saw a copy in a video rental shop I was all excited.  The excitement didn't last long as it was an appalling copy with obvious video damage and worse still it was dubbed.  And not only was it dubbed into English, but it was dubbed into English with people using sham Italian accents which made it doubly awful.  I think there must be a good film lurking there, as the director, Lina Wertmuller was Academy-nominated as best director and best writer, and the lead , Giancarlo Giannini , who was virtually on screen non-stop was nominated for best actor.  He plays a fascist everyman who will do anything to survive during World War II including some pretty revolting behaviour in a concentration camp with some sexual one-on-one with Shirley Stoler, the extremely fat cult actress from "The Honeymoon Killers". Not an easy movie to take, especially as seen on this copy -- but I think the movie is now out of my system and I'm unlikely to look further.

Les Bas-fonds (The Lower Depths) (1936)

Back to the National Film Theatre for another in the Renoir season.  A few days ago I had an e-mail from them offering a refund on the tickets as they were unhappy with the print they would be showing -- bad quality and unreadable subtitles -- although it had come from a French collection and was the best they could find.  I decided to go anyhow since I had never seen the film and I was not alone as the cinema seemed more full than usual.  And, yes, I'm glad I went.  Again I would not rank it amongst Renoir's best -- I have some trouble with his choppy editing -- and it was certainly less faithful to the original Gorky source material than the stupendous Kurosawa version.  It was tailored as a star vehicle for the great Jean Gabin who was always an amazing screen prescence and the most naturalistic of actors, long before this acting style came into vogue.  He plays a thief living in a doss house with other down and outs, but he longs for love and a straight life.  He meets a disgraced Baron played by Louis Jouvet who nearly steals the picture in the acting stakes as a theatrical type who finds grace amongst the fallen.  The contrast between the two acting styles is what gives the film its power and I was happy to keep watching.

I was slightly bothered by the last shot showing Gabin and the young girl he loves as hoboes disappearing down the road.  This is remarkably similar to Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" which was released the same year and I have absolutely no idea which came first and who stole from whom.

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

A stupid title and a stupid film.  It is possibly terminally unhip to admit that I hated this movie which some think a brilliant comedy examining the meaning of life.  Don't you believe it.  Of the seven main characters only Naomi Watts and Mark Wahlberg come off without seeming totally idiotic.  The biggest embarrassment is Isabelle Huppert slumming to play a rival "existential detective" to the only slightly less mind-boggling pair of Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin.  The lead is Jason Schwartzman who no one will ever convince me has a future in films and the other main lead, Jude Law, looked as if he would like to find a corner into which he could curl up and die.  I guess you can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time by claiming intellectual credentials, but in this instance I would suggest that it was a case of the emperor's new clothes. 

Relic (1996)

I've just finished reading the novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child -- a pair of very readable hacks -- on which this film is based and didn't remember the movie which I saw some years ago being much like the book -- so I had another look.  Of course the simple answer is that it is nothing like the book having dropped certain major characters that appear in several of the writers' works and turning the whole shooting match into some sort of creature-feature gorefest.  Well, what did I expect -- I should know by now that movies are seldom faithful to their source material.  So judging it as a film, how was it?  So-so is the verdict -- I like a bit of gore and decapitations as much as the next guy, but if I wasn't familiar with the writers' original concepts, I probably would have had little idea of what was going on.  Rather than a number of well-defined characters in the novel, the story depended on biologist Penelope Ann Miller and cop Tom Sizemore to carry the action -- not the most charismatic pair on the block.

Beyond the Sea (2004)

To make a film about the singer Bobby Darin has been Kevin Spacey's dream project for years and he wrote, directed and starred in this movie -- he was also one of the umpteen producers.  So perhaps this has a slight tinge of being a vanity project, especially since Darin died when he was 37 and Spacey is now far too old to play his singing hero, not just at the end of his career but most importantly as a young man  when he made his breakthrough.  Despite all this he makes a good fist of it and if one can forget the too mature appearance, Spacey just about convinces one.  The vocals are well-done and believable and the "facts" of his brief life are played for dramatic effect with some style.  However none of this really convinces the casual viewer that a film should have been made of Darin's life or that Spacey was the right choice of actor.

I Ought to be in Pictures (1982)

This movie based on a Neil Simon play is not that well-known or even that special, but it is always such a joy to watch Walter Matthau.  He plays an unsuccessful screenwriter turned unsuccessful gambler in California having walked out on his New York family some sixteen years previous.  Dinah Manoff (Lee Grant's daughter and again not that well-known) plays his smartass daughter who has come to the West Coast purportedly to become an actress but in reality to get to know her dad.  The interplay between them as Matthau resists being a father and Manoff as she wears down his resistance is beautiful to watch and ultimately very moving.  And of course as befits the writer, the dialogue is smart and snappy.  I must also afford a kind word about Ann-Margaret after I had a go at her a few days ago; she play's Matthau's mistress who can not get him to commit himself and she plays this role with grace and dignity.  However, hers is a small part and it's the two-hander repartee that most involves the viewer.

The Spider's Stratagem (1970)

This film was originally made for Italian television by Bernardo Bertolucci just before he made "The Conformist" which is something of a companion-piece.  This movie which also deals with the legacy of fascism is undoubtedly one of the more beautiful films ever made and at the same time one of the emptiest.  The photography is suberb with vibrant colours and vistas straight out of a De Chirico painting.  A young man visits the small town where his father was murdered before he was born and where he is revered as a tragic hero; the son's mission is to unearth the truth behind his father's death.  The film sways between past and present with the same actor playing both roles, so at times the viewer is at a loss to immediately realise where one is in the tale.  However like the punchline in Liberty Valance, sometimes it is better to not know the truth and to believe the legend -- and such is the case here.  But by the very end of the film this viewer was left to wonder whether I really understood what had taken place and indeed if any of it really had.

Pom Poko (1994)

FilmFour are doing a Studio Ghibli season with the animations of Miyazaki and his lesser-known colleague Takahata.  They started with The Castle of Cagliostro and Princess Mononoke, neither of which I watched since I have them both on DVD.  They then showed The Little Norse Prince from 1968 which is considered the earliest Japanese anime; this was fairly simple animation, but interesting, and at least was shown with subtitles.  I was therefore horrified to discover that Miyazaki's early anime, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds from 1984 was shown dubbed as was the above movie from Takahata.  I wouldn't have thought that it was beyond the wit of FilmFour to locate subtitled copies, especially since on neither film was the English voice cast credited.  And I have a horrible feeling that the remainder of the season which runs into February will produce more dubbed versions.

That quibble apart, although it is a big one, I do welcome the opportunity to see these films, especially since I have previously gone on record as labelling Miyazaki a genius.  Nausicaa's animation was not as rich and detailed as his later films, but it still showed a fertile imagination in telling the tale of a princess eco-warrior trying to preserve the people of her valley from the giant insects that had taken over their world. However the film above was really something of a treat.  The animation was not overly rich but the story was so weird and out of the ordinary that I was enchanted.  It tells of some creatures of the forest (called racoons in the dubbing, although these are not native to Japan) that have the ability to shape-shift and transform themselves into inanimate objects, other animals, ghostly spirits and even human beings.  The tanuki of Japanese folklore is apparently the animal in question.  Anyhow the film focuses on the ways they seek to preserve their forest home from development by the growing human population -- from seeking to destory all humans through moving amongst them.  Their biggest problem in maintaining their occasional victories is that they love to party and therefore can not maintain their concerted efforts.  The imagination at play in bringing all of this to the screen was truly amazing.

I'll get back to other films in this season in due course.

Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004)

I have supposedly viewed this movie before, but that was on an airplane which doesn't really count, and having seen it again, I must admit that I missed great chunks of it previously.  And "great chunks" seems an appropriate phrase.  There is no denying that Quentin Tarantino has a certain geeky talent, but his film-making is very self-indulgent.  He is so anxious to show off his vast filmic references that how these hang together becomes irrelevant to him.  I understand that the Weinstein brothers encouraged him to release the original movie in two parts -- presumably because they thought they would make more money -- but it would not have been an impossible task to edit the original three and a half hours version of the single movie into a more muscular whole.  In fact having foisted two relatively slack movies onto his public, I am really surprised that he has not yet done a single re-edit to relieve the DVD-buying public of even more shekels.

Getting back to Volume 2, there are some very good bits.  I particularly enjoyed the kung-fu training with Hong Kong icon Gordon Liu and much to my surprise I thought that David Carradine brought unexpected gravitas to his role as Bill, especially after a long career in B-movies.  However there was far too much in the way of unnecessary scenes, especially those with Madsen, and this half could have been easily tightened.  Fans have complained of too much action in the first half and too much character background in the second, and I still believe that a director of Tarantino's talents could have balanced this out without really losing anything.  Besides, think of all the deleted scenes this would have yielded on the "special-edition" DVD.

Man Bites Dog (1992)

I haven't watched this Belgian film for a while and had just about forgotten how very black it is.  Conceived, written, co-directed and starring three film school students, it was a big hit in Cannes winning the critics and youth awards.  The simple storyline is that a hand-to-mouth film crew are documenting the exploits of a serial killer as he explains his techniques, the tricks of the trade and how to dispose of bodies.  He's not too particular who he kills or how many, as long as he makes some profit on the transaction.  As the crew becomes more involved they also become more immoral and end up participating.  The movie has something in common with "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer", but it far jollier in its approach to slaughter.  Tongues are very definitely in the film-makers' cheeks.  The punchline is that there are other killers out there being shadowed by other camera crews and survival is a moot point.

Ping-Pong (2002)

I had no idea what this Japanese film would be like and could not have foreseen that it would use table tennis as a metaphor for life.  Sort of.  It's actually a very slim story about childhood friends, now in their late teens, playing competitive ping-pong for their schools.  Three of them treat the sport as a do-or-die endeavour, but the nicest one called Smile (because he never does) is also the most talented -- however he just doesn't care enough to keep a competitive edge.  Some of the photography is almost surreal in capturing the excitement of the game and the joy of the combat, but the moral is clear -- nice guys don't win.

Sylvia (2003)

I avoided watching this film for as long as I could, but when it finally turned up on BBC2, I decided it was now or never.  Never would have been the better choice.  I am not overly enamoured with Gwynneth Paltrow and her histrionics as the poet-novelist Sylvia Plath left me decidedly underwhelmed.  Her sufferings as she underwent writer's block and the supposed infidelities of her husband -- James Bond, sorry, I mean Ted Hughes as portrayed by the macho Daniel Craig -- just made her seem a whinging neurotic mess.  I can understand the children of the couple objecting to the film as doing a disservice to their parents' memories and literary legacies.

Taxi (2004)

I was tempted to not say anything about this American re-make of the Luc Besson-produced French comedy which was jolly enough in a somewhat silly way.  This version follows the original pretty closely, but the driver of the souped-up taxi is in this instance none other than Queen Latifah, a larger-than-life presence that one can not quite dislike even when tempted to do so.  The feckless cop that she assists is some dire US comic that I never heard of and would be happy to never hear of again.  However the greatest crime of this version is to cast Ann-Margaret as the cop's sozzled mama.  Some actresses apparently don't know when to retire gracefully and while one can cherish the memory of roles taken in their prime, I would have thought that they might work out that cheesy caricatures work against their legacy; if Ann-Margaret must keep on working, she would be better off with the occasional Las Vegas extravaganza than an embarrassing role like this one.

Aftermath (2004)

This Danish film deals with how a married couple handle grief when their 12-year old daughter is killed by a drunken driver.  The husband initially keeps working as an architect, but his behaviour grows more and more erratic as he daydreams about strangling the woman who was driving.  The wife, a social worker, eventually returns to her job but becomes obsessed with the baby daughter of a single mother assigned to her.  What makes this movie in the end unlikeable is where the characters go with this scenario.  The husband befriends the somewhat desperate-for-love killer until he thinks the time is ripe to reveal his true identity and the woman effectively creates a situation where the young mother could lose her child.  That they reconcile towards the end does not alter the lives of others that they may have ruined in their mourning.

Jersey Girl (2004)

This movie is not to be confused with the Jamie Getz starrer of the same title from the early 90's which was not exactly memorable, and I wasn't expecting much better from this one which Kevin Smith shot at the height of the Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck nonsense -- in fact I expected it to be awful.  The fact that it wasn't is probably because Lopez's character is killed off within the first few minutes and while Affleck is one of the more wooden actors around, Smith manages to bring something likeable out of his performances in all of the films they have done together.  Mind you it's a pretty sloppy story of widower Ben trying to raise his daughter after his wife dies in child-birth, having lost his high-powered job, and only having assistance initially from his working-class Dad and his father's two best friends (kind of a middle-aged Jay and Silent Bob).  I think this was Smith's attempt to make a more family-friendly movie, since he is now a family man himself, but there is always something just a little bit subversive in everything that he touches.  Thank goodness for that certain something here; it gave what could have been a slushfest a bit of edge. 

Comme une image/Look at Me (2004)

The French husband-wife team of Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri are multi-talented as writers, actors and directors.  This is their latest co-written effort, starring both of them and directed by her -- and jolly good it is too, although I think I slightly preferred the earlier "Le Gout des Autres". That's probably because Bacri played an aspiring upstart in the earlier picture which was interesting, whilst here he plays an extremely self-centered famous writer.  The main conflict is between him and his plain and dumpy daughter by his first marriage who wants his love and attention.  She is a singer of some talent, but he is too involved with his writing, his business, his young second wife and daughter, and just about anything else that distracts him.  She believes with some justification that people only befriend her to get close to her father; Jaoui plays her singing coach and indeed does pay her extra attention to further her husband's career.  All of the characters would like the others to look at them for themselves alone, but all of the relationships seem to be based on self-interest.  A clever film but not really a totally satisfying one.

Toni (1935)

The National Film Theatre is doing a retrospective of the films of Jean Renoir (son of the impressionist) and I thought I should fill in some of his that I've not seen previously.  Many people think he is one of the greatest -- if not THE greatest -- directors ever, and while he made a number of terrific films, I wouldn't join this crowd, especially not on the strength of this evening's viewing.  Although this movie is hailed as a forerunner of the Italian realist films of the 40s (and Visconti did cut his teeth as a production assistant to Renoir), I found it very disappointing.  Not only was it a poor print, but I felt it was badly acted and worse still badly edited.  The British Film Institute lists this movie amongst its essential viewing list and I do wonder why when Renoir should be better remembered for "La Regle du jeu" or "La Grande Illusion".  I don't buy into the argument that simply because he filmed on location and used some non-professionals in his cast that the result was necessarily a masterpiece.  I have other missing Renoirs booked over the coming weeks and hope I can be more enthusiastic.

The Pearls of the Crown (1937)

I can't begin to tell you how delighted I am to be posting a review of this film, since I never thought I would be able to do so.  Several centuries ago when I was in college, I went to the local fleapit to see some French film and this was the second feature (that was in the days when they had second features!)  I couldn't believe it -- it was a rehash of European history telling the story of the four pearls in the English crown and how they got there and what became of the missing three pearls from the original set.  What really grabbed me at the time was the fact that the movie switched between French, English, Italian and cod Abyssinian to tell the tale.

For years no one believed me that such a film existed although its director, Sacha Guitry, was a well-known figure in French theatre.  The movie was then on television once when I was out of the country and before the time that video recorders were available (just my luck) and has since been on once at the National Film Theatre about 20 years ago -- of course I was there with everyone I could think to drag with me.  But I never expected to readily view it again.  However to cut a long story short, my son scoured the net in France and managed to find a crisp French video which became one of the best Chrustmas presents ever -- and it has now been burned onto DVD by yours truly. Of course being French there is not much in the way of subtitles even during the non-French parts, but I know enough of the story to understand that the pearls in question crossed the lives of all manner of historical personages from Catherine de Medici through Queen Victoria.  Now the holy grail of a copy with subtitles is all that remains.

Just realised that I've told you my whole history with this film but didn't actually say anything about it.  OK: It's very amusing in parts, definitely unusual, and obviously very memorable!

So what else have I seen?

Every so often I need to remind myself and my readers just how obsessed I must be, since although I've commented on a number of films so far this year, they were only nine of the 23 I watched -- and in some cases you can take this term loosely -- in the last eight days.  I can do arithmetic too and I know that this averages out to three a day -- about par for the course for me!  So what else was on?  Most of them deserve only the briefest capsules, so here goes:

I, Robot:  Will Smith and lots of special effects but it didn't stop my yawning.  Lucky Jordan: Alan Ladd (1942) -- don' think I've seen this one before but not exactly memorable as gang boss is drafted.  William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet: I was only re-editing this one and not really paying attention but every time I looked up, I was reminded as to how great the visuals are.  The Prince and Me (2004): more disposable Hollywood fluff as med-student Julia Stiles falls for the Crown Prince of Denmark (yeah, sure).  Castle Keep: an interesting movie from 1969 which again I was re-editing, another poignant reminder of the futility of war.  Being Julia (2004): started off slowly but pretty engaging as Annette Benning's aging actress takes revenge on her young and fickle paramour.  Wasabi: A French-language flick from 2001 starring Jean Reno doing his cheeky and violent bit in Japan.  They Won't Believe Me (1947): thought I'd have another look at this noir with Robert Young cast against type as a villain, but the pacing was all wrong.  A Kid for Two Farthings (1955): another re-look and rather less charming than I remembered it.  The Tattooed Stranger (1950):  the Radio Times called this a cult classic amongst cineastes -- well it isn't.  Three television movies all predictable and forgettable -- so let's forget them.  And finally Churchill, the Hollywood Years, a total embarrassment from last year which really did put me to sleep.

So now you know.  I promise not to do this again too often.

Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

When I wrote about "Elf" recently, I mentioned that the charm of Will Ferrell escapes me and this movie did nothing to rectify the situation.  It's about a macho TV news team led by Ferrell who flip when a woman is brought into the equation -- and talk about unfunny, this film is embarrassing in spades.  The only time I laughed was when Luke Wilson's other arm was torn off by a bear, although I did find the bit amusing where Ferrell's dog whom he thought was dead after being thrown off a bridge re-appeared and talked the bears out of attacking the news team.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry -- you're not missing anything important.

Reconstruction (2003)

I didn't know much about this Danish film before viewing it, but it turned out to be an intriguing meditation on the nature of self -- and I suspect a second viewing will be necessary before I grasp the full meaning of the conceit played out.  A young man presumably happily in love with his girlfriend sees another woman and is immediately smitten, especially since she looks very much like his love.  The two women are in fact played by the same actress but with sufficiently different hair and make-up that one is tempted to think they are two different people. An affair of sorts begins much to the consternation of the girlfriend and the woman's husband, but out of the blue his girlfriend denies ever knowing him and even his father does not recognise him.  And by the end the woman is preparing to leave town with her husband, not recalling the young man as having had any part in her life.  Some scenes are duplicated with small variations and the narrator at the start and finish reminds us that in a movie anything is possible at the whim of the director, who can if he chooses reconstruct the so-called facts of what we are watching and what we think we understand.  Very scandinavian indeed.

Roads to Koktebel (2004)

Here's another father and son Russian road movie and I would truly like to be more enthusiastic, but there seems to be a surfeit of existential journeys of late.  We have the pair making their way as best they can from Moscow to the Crimea some 1000 miles away without the means to fund their journey.  We watch them as they live from hand to mouth, to some extent dependent on the kindness of strangers (as Blanche Dubois would have it).  After being shot by a drunken employer, the father holes up with a female doctor and the boy takes off to complete the journey on his own.  Some details of the filming linger in the mind and the acting was first-class -- particularly by the boy -- but I felt a little weary myself on reaching the end of the road.

La Revue des Revues (1927)

Another oddity to add to my film collection: this silent was primarily a historical record of revue acts from the Folies Bergere and other Parisian variety halls and included two clips featuring Josephine Baker (who frankly was something of an ungainly dancer, although a larger than life personality).  The framing story of a girl wanting to make it big in the business was kind of superfluous. but the production numbers filmed in early two- strip colour were worth my time in spades.  I could have done without the too modern score which clashed with the feel of the period, but I guess I can't have everything my own way and should be grateful that someone has seen fit to preserve this footage.

Vera Drake (2004)

What a downer!  I can not fault Imelda Staunton's portrayal of the cheery char who only wanted to help young girls in trouble and who never thought of herself as an abortionist -- she never even took any money for what she did, for goodness sake.  She plays the part to perfection and deserved all the plaudits she received.  But is this something that I really want to watch?  Not particularly.  The director, Mike Leigh, kind of bludgeons the viewer with the "irony" that toffs can pay big money to get around the abortion laws of Britain in the 50's, while good-natured folk like our Imelda end up in the pokey.  Gee, thanks, Mr.Leigh for your insight.

Nowhere in Africa (2002)

There seem to be several guaranteed ways to win an Oscar and for the best foreign film (which this German film was) one surefire way is to deal with the holocaust.  It's the thematic equivalent of an aspiring best actor choosing to play crippled or ugly!  The film in question here was long and worthy, telling the tale of a German Jewish family who left their country for Kenya before the start of the war but when the writing was on the wall.  Told largely from the young daughter's point of view -- she most successfully adapted to her uprooting, it also focused on her father's frustrations -- in  Germany a lawyer, here a lowly farm manager-- and her spoiled mother's refusal at first to lower her standard of living.  How they grow and change until their return to Germany after the war is the whole story told in rather more detail than necessary.  The film was well-done but not exactly memorable; I don't recall what the competition was that year, but I somehow doubt that this was the best of the bunch.

King Kong (2005)

What a bum-numb-er...over three and a half hours with the ads and trailers, but an amazing and engaging film.  However I do think that somewhere in the three hour production there was an absolutely brilliant two hour movie struggling to get out.  Peter Jackson has wanted to make this film for so long that he can't bear to leave anything out -- too many CGI shots of 30s' New York, too long a prelude on the ship before Kong appears, too many monsters on Skull Island.  Clever as it all is, it is really a case where less might have been more; but don't get me wrong, I still loved it.

Jack Black and Adrien Brody do an OK job with the male leads, but neither can hold a candle to the luminescent Naomi Watts as the out-of-work actress and Kong's love interest.  She is beautiful in the role and the growing love and concern for Kong's fate is shown on her face every inch of the way; in the short term romantic lead Brody doesn't stand a chance.  In the same way that Andy Serkis brought the Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings films, he has given Kong a range of expressions that are completely believable and one feels his obsession with Watts.  There is one immensely heavenly scene of the two of them sliding on the ice in Central Park that is guaranteed to bring a smile to the lips of the most hardened cynic. Not a perfect film then, but a terrific shot at one.

Winter Solstice (2003)

This two-part cable mini-series is not to be confused with the feature film of the same title released in 2004.  It is apparently based on a piece of chick-lit by Rosamund Pilcher which I have certainly not read, although I gather that it did not follow the novel particularly closely.  I was attracted by the cast which included Sinead Cusack, Jean Simmons, Geraldine Chaplin (who was killed off early on), and Peter Ustinov in his very last screen role -- not that he had much screen time.  It was all about loss and finding love and finding oneself and was watchable fluff as the main characters found themselves sharing the run-up to Christmas in the Scottish Highlands.  If only life resolved itself so neatly.

I'm off to see "King Kong" in the cinema later -- review to follow.

Confidences trop intimes (2004)

This French flick is also known as "Intimate Strangers", but neither title quite captures the flavour of the film which kept me watching, albeit slightly puzzled where the action was leading.  A not very young or overly attractive woman marches into a tax accountant's office thinking he is the psychiatrist next door and proceeds to outline her sexual traumas.  She returns a second time during which he tries to tell her that he is not a doctor.  When she does not turn up for their third appointment, he begins to miss her and tries to trace her through the therapist but finds the telephone contact she has given is weather information.  She in the meantime has discovered that he is not qualified to help her, but eventually returns since she finds that their meetings do indeed assist; he too is getting something out of their appointments as his feelings for her grow and as he starts to shed parts of his very narrow way of life.  He confides in both the psychiatrist and his ex-wife who advises that he should "hump her or dump her" (I'm sure the French was less colloquial).  Despite her having told her husband that she has a lover and describing their indulgences in great detail (not that we see her doing this, although we do meet the husband), nothing in fact takes place between them.  In the end she finds the strength to leave her marriage and find a new way of life and he....  Well, that would be telling!

Listings programmes

And a happy New Year to you all!  I shall now try to get back to my daily reviews of the arcane and not-so-obscure films I view obsessively.

The one dominant feature of the Christmas television schedules from the film fan's point of view is not the umpteenth showing of old favourites or the premiere of a big blockbuster that most of us have seen months ago, it is the film rating programme which is unfortunately both addictive and infuriating.  Other channels tried best chases and best Christmas films, but Channel 4 is the main culprit with no fewer than five scheduled over the past fortnight: best family films, best musicals, best comedies, best war movies (OK, this was a repeat from last spring when I was away), and the American Film Institute's ongoing series of 100 years, 100 something-or-others.

Mind you, any compilation from viewer voting will be heavily biased in favour of recent offerings.  This is why past programmes have named "Star Wars" the best film of all time and Al Pacino (!) as the best actor of all time.  I do despair...  Not that this stops my watching the newest bunch: the clips are fun, the talking heads are largely tolerable, and at least I can have a good moan when I find what is number one and what has been dismissed along the way.  Just for the record the top selections in the first four categories above are: "ET", "Grease", "The Life of Brian", and "Saving Private Ryan".  I'd hate to believe that this represents the cream of movie viewing.

As for the AFI programmes, they are now beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel.  In the past they did Greatest Movies, Laughs, Songs, Stars, Thrills, Heroes and Villains, and Passions.  This year it was Movie Quotes and most of them seemed to come from "Casablanca", "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind".  The winner came from the last-named film and sums up your writer at satiation point: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn".