Overall, the movie was... okay. Since most of the stuff was a rehash of the first movie, this one kind of dragged a bit.

Oh sure, there was the nice comic moments, both outright and subtle, but nothing that was as good as the first one. Perhaps they should have waited another 5 years.

Elfman's music, while servicable, was not very evident in the film. It was more in the line of the "sonic wallpaper" theory (in my opinion, of course).

I liked Rosario Dawson's character, but thought they could have done better than Lara Flynn Boyle for the baddie.

However, to end on a positive note, the animated short before the movie rocked. The whole thing was funnier than the feature.

Trailers seen:

Insomnia--Good stuff. Opening shots of Alaska worth admission price alone. Robin Williams out of place. Pacino makes up for this.

Minority Report--No masterpiece like Ebert says, but good thriller with neat premise and great sets. Like Enemy of the State, a good reminder of what a pain the new survellance technology is going to be. Typical Spielberg sentimentality could go, but odd quirky stuff like Cruise chasing after his eyeballs balances that out.

Director Randa Haines also made CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD and WRESTLING ERNEST HEMINGWAY, two other coping-with-problems films. Didn't see CHILDREN OF but did see ERNIE HEMINGWAY and thought it was extremely well made, if predictable. Same with THE DOCTOR. Predictable in that of course William Hurt becomes a better person after his brush with death. Predictable in that he dances with a terminal patient on the horizon because those kind of moments are the most important to her. But extremely well made in that it does manage to get to some painful home truths below its glossy veneer and TV Movie-tragedy-of-the-week synopsis. And my eyes were a bit watery during some scenes. You see, some grit must have come in the window and got into my eyes or something.

Haines' usual composer Michael Convertino does a delicate and commendably restrained score, with haunting Tim Morrison-ish trumpety bits.

THE DOCTOR (USA 1991)

Directed by Randa Haines
Screenplay by Robert Caswell, from the book by Ed Rosenbaum
Photography by John Seale
Music by Michael Convertino

Directed by Jim Gillespie
Screenplay by Kevin Williamson, from the novel by Lois Duncan
Photography by Denis Crossan
Music by John Debney

Main Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jnr, Muse Watson, Anne Heche

Was this really any good for people who are not teenagers? I caught it on the jellyvision last night and couldn't recall if I'd seen it before or not, it was that undistinguished. I think I had actually seen it, or maybe I'm thinking of URBAN LEGEND, which I think I'm sure I really really did see. Anyway, some twenty years too old for this kind of thing the mechanics of it all stuck out a mile. I could almost hear the teenage girls screaming at the shock moments.

Directed by Henry Bean
Screenplay by Henry Bean and Mark Jacobson
Photography by Jim Denault
Music by Joel Diamond

Main Cast: Ryan Gosling, Summer Phoenix, Theresa Russell, Billy Zane

THE BELIEVER has an interesting premise. The actual events which inspired the movie took place in New York in the 60s and involved the discovery of a leading Jewish militant amongst a group of KKK members.

Henry Bean has used the basic idea and built the film around the ambiguities and contradictions in the character of the skinhead Jewish Nazi. It's an interesting movie, and gritty enough, but I felt that the central dilemma of the protagonist didn't come across clearly at all, despite good acting. I kept wondering what point it was trying to make, but at least it's different.

Directed by Billy Wilder
Screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond
Photography by Christopher Challis
Music by Miklos Rozsa

Main Cast: Robert Stephens, Colin Blakely, Genevieve Page, Christopher Lee

Right, I'd like to say that most of the film occurs in long-shot or medium-shot, with a remarkable lack of close-ups, certainly diverting the filmic discourse from the "here", as it were, to the "there" as it mibbe ain't.

That's what my media studies degree did for me. I have no idea what the long-shots do, all I know is that this is one film which I really really want to like more, yet each time I see it it leaves me unsatisfied. Maybe it's too genteel and mannered, or maybe there are problems with the episodic structure, but it has always struck me as a good-looking much ado about not very much.

Gae (Just bought American Beauty on Ex-rental DVD...haven't seen it yet...review coming up as soon as I have !!)

Impostor. I rented this video staring Gary Sinise and Madeline Stowe. No wonder
it died at the theaters. It was a dull, wretched movie, and I wish I had my money back.
I used the fast forward button frequently so I could see the surprise ending.

Hart’s War with Colin Farrell and Bruce Willis. This is the story of a trial that takes
place in a W.W.II POW camp. Movie begins at a nice pace but does bog down. Still,
the characters are interesting as are the moral dilemmas and choices facing several men.
It’s about racism, honor, duty, and sacrifice, and at least it held my attention. Attractive
Rachel Portman score that is quite moving at the end.

Directed by Arne Glimcher
Screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Peter Stone, from the novel by John Katzenbach
Photography by Lajos Koltai
Music by James Newton Howard

Main Cast: Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Capshaw, Ed Harris

Black man is set to fry for nasty crime. Retired lawyer investigates and finds that nothing is as it seems.

And what starts off as seemingly another routine anti-capital punishment film becomes increasingly convoluted and increasingly uninvolving. Derivative too, with uncomfortable similarities to SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (some of the structure, and the Ed Harris Hannibal character), SEVEN (biblical allusions) and even CAPE FEAR (watery climax). But Sean Connery is always watchable, even when he isn't even trying.

Directed by George Cukor
Screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin
Photography by Joseph Walker
Music by Hugo Friedhofer

Main Cast: Judy Holliday, Aldo Ray, Madge Kennedy, Mickey Shaugnessy

In the divorce court, a couple review their tumultuous married life.

There are better-known, and perhaps better, films from this team (ADAM'S RIB; PAT AND MIKE). The grating, high-pitched delivery of the Noo Yorkisms becomes wearing, and the sudden, very dramatic change to tragedy for the last reels is a little jarring. Or maybe I'm being too harsh and it's just that I wanted Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn to be in it. It's still good, smart entertainment, though as a "plea for understanding" I wouldn't bet a monkey's nuts on this couple working things out second time around.

ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (USA 1939)

Directed by Howard Hawks
Screenplay by Jules Furthman, from a story by Howard Hawks
Photography by Joseph Walker
Music by Dimitri Tiomkin

Main Cast: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell

Women disrupt the status quo in a small airline company in South America, where the pilots of the cargo planes are real men.

I'm sure books must have been written about the dominant themes in Hawkes' movies. Friendship, male bonding and all that? I don't know, I haven't read any, but in the few films of his I've seen there is a lot of meaty stuff. The way this one starts off you think that Jean Arthur is actually going to be the main character, but it isn't long before she's shoved into the background, along with a splendiferous Rita Hayworth, treated as mere annoyances in Hawks' masculine world.

Oops, got into deep water there. Started pretending I knew what I was on about. Anyway, apart from all that rich thematic seam just waiting to be mined in discussion right here, ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is a pretty good action film, with handsome visuals and exciting aerial/ model shots. Good acting too. Perhaps a shade overstretched though.

SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION (USA 1971)

Directed by Paul Newman
Screenplay by John Gay, from the novel by Ken Kesey
Photography by Richard Moore
Music by Henry Mancini

Main Cast: Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Lee Remick, Michael Sarrazin, Richard Jaeckel

"Never give an inch" is the motto of a family of Oregon loggers. Their stubbornness doesn't help them in their strained relationship with the union, and things come to a head with the return of the prodigal son, who rattles some skeletons in the closet.

"Never Give An Inch" was also the British title of the movie, and indicative of the theme of pig-headedness. This family really is very pig-headed indeed, which is their strength and also their weakness. An interesting film open to interpretation - is that really a victorious ending (Newman cruising down the river towing a million logs behind him, Henry Fonda's arm nailed to the mast)? Mmm. I don't know the Kesey novel - anyone read it?

Anyway, the film is pretty good, rich in detail, quite affecting and extremely well-acted. Richard Jaeckel, an extremely short-armed actor indeed, is particularly good as the dim brother who comes to a sticky end (a heart-rending scene). Lee Remick is also touching as Newman's semi-abandoned wife.

A very strange but wonderful film that's part documentary, part-political thriller, part ghost story.

A man is killed because he resembles a union official, then his ghost wanders around trying to discover just why he was killed and what it's all about. His death sets into play a series of events among the living, but as a ghost, he can do nothing about any of it but observe.

It's a kind of Japanese take on the same themes explored in Camus' Les Jeux Sont Fait and is similar in some ways to Ghost (without the good-looking people and the comic relief).

In The Pitfall, life is an incredibly complex set of dramas, but from the stand point of eternity, these dramas seem negative, pointless. And yet, while people are a part of life, how they live does matter to them and passions and politics do make life more of a struggle than seems necessary.

Joe Versus the Volcano

the original Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan love story.
saw it many years ago, loved the score, and right now it's on the Encore channels.

There is some good dialogue, and you can see that Tom Hanks has ALWAYS been a good actor, and that it didn't just staret with Philadelphia.
It only really gets bad at the end, and I never understood the use of "Hava Nagila/ Johny Comes Marching Home" for the natives on the island. Otherwise, Delerue's score is beautiful; I love the storm sequence and the moonrise, scored with that beautiful solo oboe.

Dead Again

odd movie, but good, especially Doyle's score, though it does verge on going a bit over the top.

Road to Perdition

excellent movie. Hard to know if I LIKED it though. Don't you feel slightly guilty for buying into a story about bad people?

Insomnia

I especially crack up every single time watching the hilarious scene where the hero duo are dangling from the cliff, and these scorpions start pouring on them, then the llama gets stuck, the bats come, and swoosh - they are on the cliff again. The scene has almost a Chaplinisque timing and class despite of its very modern approach. Simply wonderful.

I also watched CATS & DOGS (for the first time), and unfortunately it wasn't as great as I thought it would. But atleast Tobey Maguire does a great vocal performance as the hero dog - and John Debney sounds SO PERFECT on this score.

(I know what you mean, JJH.)

I was glad to hear the Hanks would finally take on the role of a villain, but I feared
that his villainy would be glossed over by having him portray a good man who is forced
into killing. He was a killer, plain and simple. His only redeeming virtue was that he
loved his family. The main characters in the Godfather movies adored their families,
prayed to God, acted like good Catholics, and capriciously killed people. This
dichotomy develops in the audience a kind of emotional dissonance that keeps one tense
throughout the movie. Don’t want to root for a killer, and don’t want to orphan a boy
who loves his loving father but knows what his father does for a living is morally
reprehensible. I liked being disconcerted by that emotional tension.

Cinematography was wonderful. Dark, rainy and brooding when Hanks is near Chicago
and with the mob. When he tries to escape, the title has a double meaning. The road to
Perdition is the road to Hell where Hanks, Newman and other killers are irrevocably
bound. While they appear to be good Catholics, they know they’ll, “Never see Heaven.”
Perdition, the town, also exists replete with loving aunt, golden retriever, lake, sandy
beaches, maybe some sort of safety and redemption. As Hanks and son get nearer the
town, sun and light fill the screen. Two sides of Perdition.

Thematically, the movie develops two sides of the theme that the sins of the fathers are
visited upon the sons. Yep, the sins are AND maybe are not.

Wonderful performance by the always resplendent Newman who with a twitch
and a look can signal the inner turmoil of being shackled by blood, tainted blood.
Hanks gave a quiet, muted performance suited to his character. Law played a great
quirky killer. Daniel Craig is a relative newcomer who was wonderful as the immoral, disgusting son of Newman.

This movie is worth a visit.

Directed by Gene Saks
Screenplay by I.A.L. Diamond, from the play by Abe Burrows (based on a French original by Pierre Barillet and Jean Pierre Gredy)
Photography by Charles E. Lang
Music by Quincy Jones

Main Cast: Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, Goldie Hawn, Rick Lenz

Dentist's life becomes very complicated when he tells his girlfriend a little white lie and it all gets out of control, with people posing as wives and boyfriends etc.

Quite bright, but could have been funnier. Stage origins very evident, with somewhat wearying series of "exit stage lefts" and correspondingly comedy-theatre script, where the dialogues, even when clever, sound like...well, a script? You know, where you can guess the witty replies. Other problem just might be Ingrid Bergman. Lovely woman perhaps, but not the funniest of performers, and to watch her loosening up at the club, 60s style, is a bit painful. But CACTUS FLOWER is still enjoyable enough.

Directed by Alan Parker
Screenplay by Laura Jones and Alan Parker, from the book by Frank McCourt
Photography by Michael Seresin
Music by John Williams

Main Cast: Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joe Green, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge

The joy of growing up poor in Ireland in the 30s and 40s.

Impeccable succession of images - never have slums in the rain looked so realistic - this is downbeat but often grimly funny. Some of the vignettes are richly detailed, in fact I imagine that ANGELA'S ASHES is particularly attractive to viewers with this background. The good old days indeed!

Beautifully made, keenly observed, but it doesn't delve deep and so doesn't really cause a lasting impression. Well, I don't know, I only saw it on Thursday.

John Williams is the greatest, but his score is distributed in a strange way across the movie, bunched up near the start and then giving way to period songs. Some people might consider the score itself as Hollywood bastardization, but it displays all the composer's humanity.

Plenty of songs for the kids on the soundtrack. The actual score has its moments, sort of ALIENish (surely the most influential horror score of its time?)

THE FACULTY (USA 1998)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Screenplay by Kevin Williamson, from a story by David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel
Photography by Enrique Chediak
Music by Marco Beltrami

Directed by Lasse Hallström
Screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs, from the novel by Joanne Harris
Photography by Roger Pratt
Music by Rachel Portman

Main Cast: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp, Carrie-Anne Moss, John Wood, Victoire Thivisol, Leslie Caron

Woman and daughter set up a cake shop in a small French village and cause upheaval amongst the townsfolk.

So vaguely mystical it looks like it should have been directed by Robert Redford. Excellently done all round, but perhaps just a shade too heavy on the joie de vivre - or maybe simply too blatantly Oscar-grabbing.

Gae

Having just seen Manchurian Candidate (which plays letterboxed on AMC next month), I was surprised to see that Frankenheimer was still doing the same depth-of-focus, clear foreground to background shots that he was doing 40 years ago.

Path to War is long and a lot of talk but well-performed and scripted. Although there is little action in the conventional sense, the scenes are strong enough to keep you interested.

Although the events are accurate, Path to War can't take in the whole of Vietnam, just this one aspect of it. And, while it tries to show the light and dark sides of everyone involved, it's ultimately going for a certain sympathy for LBJ. Complete with "ennobling" music by Gary Chang.

Where it does succeed is 1) getting across how isolated the decision makers are from the people, 2) how the cabinet really didn't know what to do when their optimistic plans failed, and 3) how everyone who advised LBJ to get into Vietnam deserted him and made him take the blame for their mistakes and guilt.

And it gets one more thing across, how easy it is to lose it when the pressure is on. Path to War doesn't cover the same madness that Altman's Secret Honor does about Nixon's last days in the White House, but it does depict a Johnson so hated and ill-advised and a staff so confused about what to do that it could be seen as depicting a similar kind of insanity.

Saw a documentary about director Robert Wise, don't know if from the same doc series as Lou mentioned. Fairly straightforward chronological charting of his career, covering his work as editor on Welles' CITIZEN KANE and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, his promotion to director on the Val Lewton-produced horror classics, and his work in all genres right up to...about 1968. That's right, the programme drew a veil over all his subsequent work, denying us any juicy stuff about THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and STAR TREK TMP.

Interesting indeed to hear him talk about the robot suit for Gort in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. There were, in effect, two suits - one with a zip up the back for Lock Martin to step into for the scenes showing him from the front, and another with a zip up the front, used for the scenes when he's walking away from the camera.

Just got back from seeing the latest installment in the Austin Powers franchise.

So I won't spoil anything for those who still haven't seen it, all I'll say is I liked it a lot better than Spy Who Shagged Me. Of course, there were the unavoidable parts that dragged out, but it was quicker, funnier, and a lot more brazen with the inside jokes this time.

I liked most of the cameos, with the exception of Britney Spears. All I can say is I was happy at her last scene with Austin.

I really liked "Foxy Cleopatra." Talk about "schwiingg!" Very shagadelic, baby!

And to speed myself up for this film, I threw in the first two movies these past couple days. Just to get into the "shag groove."

And you had to love the ending....

Dave Grusin uses some top instrumentalists in his flavoursome score in order to give it that touch of Bahía authenticity. The only overblown moment underscores a key scene of revolutionary action, and sounds vaguely Morricone-ish in its operatics ("Cuba Libre - Se Fue" on the CD). The rest of the music is tasteful, even when unavoidably stirring memories of Gloria Estefan. Great end titles with soulful wordless vocals by Dori Caymmi ("Hurricane Country" on the CD).

HAVANA (USA 1990)

Directed by Sidney Pollack
Screenplay by Judith Rascoe and David Rayfiel
Photography by Owen Roizman
Music by Dave Grusin

Main Cast: Robert Redford, Lena Olin, Alan Arkin, Raul Julia

Apparently, after the fracas of TORN CURTAIN, Hitchcock was looking for new ways to approach old subjects. He was enormously impressed by Antonioni's BLOW-UP and wanted to do a film just as radical. He got a script together (with Philip Dunne I think, among others) based on an old English murder case, and began shooting using fast film stock in natural light, and a cast of unknown actors. But Universal suddenly thought that they might have difficulty selling the product as a Hitchcock movie, and it was abandoned.

Many of the elements were reworked for FRENZY, including the gritty look ( so unlike his earlier, highly stylized films), and the flashes of nudity. Not much mention was made of how something as blandly conventional as TOPAZ fit in between KALEIDOSCOPE and FRENZY though.

Very quickly, two disappointing movies to round off the month. First was GLORY, Civil War thing. Here are all those young men going off to face something as major as death, and it's actually uninteresting. I'm not sure what went wrong - some of it seemed underwritten (all those black people with nothing to do), and Matthew Broderick was maybe too lightweight (the part did call for a certain boyish aspect, but not THAT much). Anyway, I thought the whole thing wasn't any more special than if it had been an unimaginative, though carefully produced, TV show.

The Horner score is quite samey throughout. Not too exciting, except for the Fort Wagner track, but its contemplative simplicity works in its favour as an elegy.

GLORY (USA 1989)

Directed by Edward Zwick
Screenplay by Kevin Jarre, from the books by Lincoln Kirstein and Peter Burchard, and the letters of Robert Gould Shaw
Photography by Freddie Francis
Music by James Horner

Louis Gruenberg didn't do many films, and although the score is fairly typical of its time, just occasionally a scene is scored in an unfamiliar way (which woke me from my slumber about twice).

ARCH OF TRIUMPH (USA 1948)

Directed by Lewis Milestone
Screenplay by Lewis Milestone and Harry Brown, from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque
Photography by Russell Metty
Music by Louis Gruenberg

Monster's Ball

One seriously depressing movie.

Lost Horizon (1937)

Wow, it's much better than I anticipated.
Older films are harder to get into, but this one yields some fantastic rewards, not the least of which is Dimitri Tiomkin's STUNNING score. Seek the BYU release.

Have fond memories of LOST HORIZON too. Wouldn't mind seeing that one again. Anyone remember the infamous remake? Anyone like it?