The Last King of Scotland (2006)

This movie kicked off this year's London Film Festival but, much as I like the actor Forest Whitaker, I didn't go to see it before this preview showing.  And he was absolutely stupendous playing Idi Amin, although I would be pleasantly surprised if this showcase resulted in an Oscar nomination for him.  He really became a believable monster Amin, but he was if anything too good, and it was therefore too unpleasant a characterization to win many hearts.  In fact nearly none of the characters on display were particularly likeable, so although one could admire director and documentarian Kevin Macdonald's first feature film, it was not really a movie that one could warm to.  The real focus of the story was Amin's (fictional) Scottish doctor, played by James McAvoy who is this month's 'next big thing'; running away from the prospect of being a family doctor at home with his doctor dad, he lands up in Uganda where he is flattered by Amin's attentions and manages to turn a blind eye to reality, until it is nearly to late to save his soul.  The two hour length did not drag, but one was left with something of a bitter taste by this onslaught of uncomfortable facts and behaviour. I should mention that there was a small role towards the start for a now nearly unrecognizable Gillian Anderson; while it was good to see her back on the screen, this section added little to the tale, except to reinforce what a callow prat the McAvoy character was.

The Farmer's Wife (1928)

It's not every day that I get to view an unknown Hitchcock, so on that level this British silent was something of a treat.  There is little to link this bucolic comedy with the director who came to be known as the Master of Suspense, other than his even then evident artistic eye and his playful nature.  The story concerns a prosperous farmer whose wife has died and who decides it is time for him to wed again.  His faithful and let it be said very attractive housekeeper is the obvious choice, but apparently not obvious enough to the poor dolt.  Instead he presents himself to four highly unsuitable local females, thinking that they will jump at the opportunity, only to find himself spurned for various reasons -- they are either too independent or too afraid of sex or consider themselves too young for him.  Of course the viewer knows where this will lead, but it takes the farmer the course of the movie to find out.  In the meantime we join him in his amusing quest with the local gentry and bumpkins.  The version I saw ran 97 minutes, but I understand that a 127 minute print exists; I can't for the life of me guess how they could expand this already-thin story. 

School of the Holy Beast (1974)

This was the last of the four films selected from the NFT's "Wild Japan" season and after viewing it, I asked myself whatever possessed me to choose it.  Well the answer is to be found in the season's programme which overhyped this film as one of the most outrageous in cinema history and "way beyond wild".   The more accurate description I can report to you comes from the film notes which describes it as 'the mother superior of all Nipponese nudie nun extravaganzas'!  Yes, you are reading that correctly; I now know that softcore Catholic nun movies were a busy subgenre of Japanese exploitation films in the '70s.  Our heroine spends her last day before entering a convent where 'women aren't women' drinking and clubbing and going to bed with a pick-up.  Ostensibly she is out to find the truth of her mother's death at her birth 18 years earlier, but not before she discovers that the convent is a hotbed of lesbianism, self-flagellation, sexual explotation by a Rasputin-like priest, and countless topess shots of the nuns.  Some of the imagery is amazing, such as our heroine being punished by being trussed up with long brambles and being beaten by bouquets of roses, but the overall story as she seeks justice for the harm done to her mother, who was also a nun, is completely over the top.  OK, the gory retribution paid by the worst culprits is satisfying, but this is the sort of film that one hates oneself for even seeming to enjoy watching. 

Vivement Dimance! (1983)

This French film known by its English titles as "Finally Sunday" or "Confidentially Yours" was director Francois Truffaut's last shout, and not really a high point of his illustrious career.  Presumably conceived as a pastiche homage to the film noir genre, it is even shot in black and white with no great distinction.  Jean-Louis Trintignant plays an estate agent suspected of the murder of his wife's lover, the first of a run of murders which the cops would like to lay at his door, but it is pretty clear from get-go that he is not our killer.  It is down to his recently fired secretary-cum-Girl-Friday, sparklingly played by Fanny Ardant to track down the real culprit (whose identity is hardly a big surprise).  Trintignant is so laid-back and feeble in this role that one wonders at his casting, despite his long history with Truffaut; Ardant, however, just about makes the movie watchable.  It is all, in the end, extremely silly and uninvolving, and hardly the Hitchcock tribute that some critics read into it. 

The Man (2005)

I had no great expectations for this film since Samuel L. Jackson tends to play the Samuel L. Jackson persona in every film and Eugene Levy seems to get less amusing with each movie.  I was therefore pleasantly surprised by what mindless fun it was -- and at roughly 80 minutes, it never overstayed its welcome.  Jackson plays a free-wheeling special agent out to avenge his partner's murder by finding a cache of stolen guns and Levy is the dental equipment salesman who is mistaken as the potential buyer by the (English) baddies.  Their chemistry together is surprising good as Levy moves from being Mr. Joe Schmo to being a take-charge character, while Jackson shows a broader string to his bow.  OK, it wasn't consistently hilarious by any means and did have its share of violence, but as an amusing if unmemorable outing, I have to give it high marks.

The Holy Mountain (1926)

This is not the Jodorowsky cult pic of the same title, but a German silent which has its own place in cinema history.  Back in the late 20s/early 30s, the Germans thrilled to a series of mountain-climbing movies of which this is one of the first.  While it would be notable in itself for the spectacular photography, its real claim to treasured-status is as an early starring role for Leni Riefenstahl, later known as the "Fuhrer's Filmmaker", infamous for her Nuremburg and Olympics documentaries -- both brilliant in their perverseness.  Here she plays a dancer who is loved by two mountain-climbing friends;  when the elder believes (incorrectly) that she is dallying with the younger, the pair go off on an impossible climb in inclement weather.   The mountains have a mystical meaning here as some sort of metaphor for friendship and loyalty which adds to the weird but dated feel of the story.  Incidentally Riefenstahl, who is no beauty, dances only slightly more appealingly than a pregnant hippopotamus (or maybe that's being just a little bit unkind) and we are treated to an inordinate number of her performances.

War of the Worlds (2005)

Last year's big summer blockbuster provides ample evidence of director Spielberg's technique, but is emotionally a busted flush.  The special effects of aliens and their tripods attacking the world and destroying our population to provide fodder for their own food crop is spectacular and terrifying, but the human element is unfortunately vested in Tom Cruise's deadbeat Dad, whose two children have been left with him for the nonce by his divorced wife, now remarried and pregnant and off to visit family.  While Cruise no doubt views himself as a heroic figure in today's cinema, he spends most of the movie on the run -- scared to death as most of us would be -- and only somewhat belatedly eager to protect his kids.  His ultimate survival, ignoring his having become a murderer in the process, and the final reuniting of the complete family defies belief -- but he is Tom Cruise after all.  While, in a way, it is nifty to observe the action effectively through one pair of eyes, this technique does drag things down to a crawl at times and I for one craved the broader picture.  Despite the elements of the tale now being familiar to us from countless other "invasion" flicks, this is only the second film version of Wells' book.  The first was back in 1953 and is fondly remembered 'though, truth to tell, it is a little primitive by modern standards.  The leads of that film, Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, have a small cameo in this one as a footnote to movie history.

36 (2004)

The full title of this French film is 36 Quai des Orfevres which is the address of the Criminal Investigations Division in Paris, the equivalent of Scotland Yard, and it is one truly terrific policier.  Starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu as detectives and former friends who are both seeking the top job on the retirement of their immediate superior,  it has been implied that whichever of them captures the crims who have perpetrated a series of bloody security vehicle holdups over the last year will be the victor.  Auteuil is the rogue cop who with his faithful team will flirt with unethical methods to achieve his ends, whilst Depardieu who appears to work through the system is, if anything, even more unethical in his scheming.  When Auteuil has the villains within his grasp, Depardieu compromises the operation, which results in the death of a popular member of Auteuil's team.  To avoid allowing the latter to testify against him in the hearing to follow, Despardieu uncovers evidence which lands Auteuil in pokey for seven years and is even responsible for the death of Auteuil's wife, Valeria Golino, with whom he shares some past undisclosed history.  Depardieu achieves his goal in the short term, but eventually the past catches up in a totally unexpected but satisfying way.  Good stuff!

L'Auberge Espagnole (Pot Luck) 2002

People seem to think highly of this French euro-pudding of a film, but perhaps its pictures of student life rang more bells with them than they did with me.  Rising actor Romain Duris has had some good press of late, but he plays such a little shit in this film that his story left me cold.  Advised to spend a year studying in Spain to further his ambitions for a government post, he goes to lovely Barcelona, leaving behind his hippy mom and his long-term squeeze, Audrey Tatou.  We are shown the troubles he has finding somewhere suitable to live before ending up sharing with a mixed bunch of sexes, orientations, and nationalities.  (Much of the dialogue is per force in broken English, since the flatmates have varying fluency in Spanish and little knowledge of the other tongues).   He begins an affair with the lonely wife of a doctor who has been kind to him, while still stringing Tatou along, and generally embraces the carefree student life; apart some complaints about the lectures being in Catalan rather than Castilian, his school hours are just about irrelevant to the rather thin plot.  However on his return to France and the coveted job, he runs away from any such adult responsibility to embrace the "freedom" of a writer's life, one way of recreating his easygoing student days.  I felt like shouting "grow up".  The only thing in  favour of this movie from my point of view is that it ran 20 minutes shorter than it said on the DVD case! 

Malefique (2002)

The good folk who organise the FrightFests that I attend (although I must admit to missing their most recent all-nighter -- I'm getting past that sort of thing) have started their own DVD label to offer worthwhile movies which might not see the light of day elsewhere.  This French film, the first feature from director Eric Valette, is a worthy case in point and a movie that I am pleased to have discovered through their efforts.  It concerns four cellmates: a businessman shopped for fraud by his untrustworthy wife, an elderly literary type who has indeed killed his wife, a tough butch transvestite whose crime is not detailed, and a simpleton raised with pigs on a farm who has literally eaten his six-month old baby sister.  They discover a book hidden in the walls of their cell by a previous inmate who has somehow tapped black magic to effect an escape.  They try to understand its mysteries with unexpected results.  The idiot who attempts to eat the book is destroyed by it, as it seeks to protect itself; the other three after a visit by a mysterious new cellmate think they have discovered the secret, only to end up in a new and grimmer cell.  Ultimately they come to understand the book's real power which comes as something of a surprise to both the characters and the viewer.  Filmed on a small budget with actors unknown to me (all of whom were absolutely first-rate), this movie achieves its chills effectively.

In Memoriam:  R.I.P. Robert Altman.  Regular readers of this journal may recall that this director was a firm favourite of mine and that "Nashville" will always figure in my ever-changing top ten.  His influences on movie-making -- ensemble casts, overlapping stories and dialogue -- are indelible.  Yes, his output was madly inconsistent with some critical duds amongst the gems, but I never found any of his films uninteresting and the best of them will stand as his memorial, hopefully forever. 

Jigoku (1960)

This was my third visit to the Wild Japan season at the NFT and a more schizophrenic film I have yet to see.  Although recently released onto DVD in the States, this movie has long been regarded as a lost classic from director Nobuo Nakagawa, a horror specialist.  Unfortunately it is not quite the gem I was expecting, although not without interest.  The title translates as "Hell" and the movie falls into two related but discrete halves.  In the first part, a happily engaged student sees his life collapse under the influence of a mysterious colleague who involves him in a hit-and-run crime.  Then, by a series of unlikely coincidences and catastrophes, he and vitually every other of the numerous characters ends up dead.  The film now moves into its second half which recreates the Buddhist view of the eight circles of hell in gaudy colour and lurid images.  It takes the line that we are all sinners and even so-called innocents, which includes children who die before their parents and unborn babies, must suffer eternal damnation.  The schizophrenia stems from the rather draggy first half morphing into the phantasmagoric second half without blinking.

I don't know whether I'm getting fed up with blogging -- I certainly used to churn out more reviews per week -- or whether there seem to be a growing number of movies that I have no inclination to cover.  Some examples from the last few days: "Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo" with the embarrassing Rob Schneider pushing the boundaries of good taste to bursting point and with respected Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe slumming for a pay cheque.  Then there was"The Constant Gardener", about as worthy a film as you could hope to view about illegal drug tests in Africa, but one that seemed to be hitting the viewer over the head with its message.  I know Rachel Weisz won a best supporting Oscar for her role in this, but I was in no way inspired by or in awe of her performance.

Lord of War (2005)

However you slice it, I do believe that Nicolas Cage has been one very lucky actor.  Far from being a conventionally good-looking lead, he manages to attract starring roles.  I have nothing particularly negative to say about his skills as an actor, despite his occasional blatant miscasting (Captain Corelli springs to mind), but his acting chops do not strike me as being top of the class, just better than average.  So like I say, he has been lucky.  In this film he plays Yuri, the son of Ukrainian immigrants living in Brooklyn's Little Odessa, who early on gets seduced by the potential richness of the arms-dealing life -- and he is very good at it.  He does not attempt to justify the ends which his weapons provide nor does he try to adapt a holier-than-thou approach despite the violence he encounters; it's just business to him and a means of supporting his wife and son.  The moral antitheses are provided by his more sensitive brother, Jared Leto, and an interpol agent who is trying to nail him, played by a smug Ethan Hawke.  I suppose it could be said that Cage gives a powerful performance, but the really scary moral coda is that dealers like him are but a drop in the bucket; the main providers of arms to the world are the seven nations that sit on the UN Security Council!