The Manchurian Candidate
Yet another remake of a 1960s classic, hot on the heels of Alfie, and following in the tradition of Ocean’s Eleven and The Thomas Crown Affair. The original Manchurian Candidate is an all-time classic of the political thriller genre. Although a flop at the time of its release in 1962, these days it is almost impossible to find a film critic worth their salt who wouldn’t rank it as an incredible movie-making achievement and place John Frankenheimer on the list of all-time great directors because of it. It has also earned a place in the history books – its star, Frank Sinatra (on incredible form) became so convinced that it had inspired the assassination of President Kennedy the year after its release that he was later to buy up the rights to prevent it from being shown lest it inspire more such acts of direct political action.
However, it was very much a film of its time, perfectly locked into the Cold War paranoia of the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis and a world where the nukes could have started flying at the drop of a hat. How is it possible that such a film could be remade now, in the post Cold War world?
Well, as with the real world, now that the Communist threat has been removed from the equation, a new enemy had to be found, and that enemy is Arabic. But it isn’t so much the external enemy which is the focus here, but – in a classic Cold War motif – the enemy within.
As with the original, the genius behind this film comes from the confusion of the central character – originally Sinatra’s Bennett Marco, now Denzel Washington’s Ben Marco – as he desperately tries to find out whether his memories of the war are real. Marco’s suspicions about the record of his one-time subordinate – played by Lawrence Harvey in the original, now by Liev Schreiber – make for an unusual plot progression which, for people who haven’t seen the original, will probably be most reminiscent of that other great film about missing memories, Memento.
Naturally, following another war in Iraq and with a Presidential election taking place in the same month as the film’s release, this film is highly topical. The fact it also revolves in part around whether a candidate for the Oval Office (albeit a Vice Presidential rather than Presidential one) truly earned his war-hero status further underscores the point.
Thankfully, however, this is no mere cash-in on the current fascination with the US political scene, and any parallels to recent political slurs are entirely coincidental. Director Jonathan Demme, who is probably best known for The Silence of the Lambs, has managed to get another great performance out of Washington, following their previous collaboration on Philadelphia, and along with his screenwriters has created a fresh, contemporary take on a great film. It’s not quite as good as the original, but it is a lot more relevant to today’s political concerns, and manages to be both engrossing and thought-provoking in equal measure. In short, it’s one of those rare intelligent yet fun Hollywood movies which crops up from time to time, and should be cherished. Go see.
The Grudge
Japanese horror movies are all the rage at the moment. Here Japanese writer/director Takashi Shimizu cashes in on the recent success of the Americanised remake of his fellow countryman Hideo Nakata’s cult smash-hit Ringu (or Ring) by Americanising and remaking one of his own films. The fact that Shimizu’s film was itself a fairly blatant (if effective) rip-off of Nakata’s better-known horror flick simply underlines the point.
In Ringu the central conceit was that by watching a cursed video, you would be doomed to die within a week unless you passed the curse on by getting someone else to watch it. Here, the curse is there, but it doesn’t come from a video, and although it can be passed on to others, it can’t be got rid of. Once you’re cursed, that’s it – you are doomed to be consumed by an all-powerful rage which will eventually kill you and anyone unfortunate enough to cross your path. Bit of a downer, really, but makes a nice change from the typical horror fare where you know that the hero will almost always manage to find an escape route.
To be fair, this isn’t so much a remake or rip-off of just one movie, but rather takes aspects of Shimizu’s entire four-film Ju-On series alongside ideas from Nakata’s Ringu and its sequels – it even shares the same producer, Takashige Ichise, as the original Ringu. For the switch to the US a more recognisable name is needed, however, and is amply provided in the form of Executive Producer Sam Raimi – a cult horror hero thanks to his brilliant Evil Dead series, and now a mainstream super-director thanks to the success of the Spiderman franchise.
Going along with the whole English language theme, the casting of a nubile American in the lead was a given, and the choice of actress is superb – Sarah Michelle Gellar, aka Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself.
With Gellar in the lead, audience expectations are instantly thrown into turmoil. Will she be the kick-ass kung-fu superheroine of Buffy or the screaming parody of horror movie starlets of Scream 2? One thing that is guaranteed is that Gellar almost always puts in a good performance, so even though this may be a remake of a bunch of sequel rip-offs, most people going to see this will probably hope that perhaps it might not be that bad.
The trouble with this sort of remake is that the original is not only still very recent (the last Ju-On movie only came out last year), but that since the advent of DVD any horror fan can easily get hold of it. The original Japanese Ringu was far superior to the Americanised remake, despite the latter still being halfway decent, but the core audience had already seen the Japanese version, so what was the point in making another version so soon? As happened with Gus Van Sant’s remake of Hitchcock’s all-time horror classic, Psycho, hardly anyone could see the point, and those who cared about the original thought it sacrilege.
For the non-Japanese horror fan, the added sense of unease created by the unfamiliar culture and language of the original are utterly lost here. With that goes a lot of the attraction of the original film. Although it may well still be scary, and although it’s not a terrible job, why bother paying to see this at the cinema when you can buy the superior originals on DVD and watch them as often as you like? Horror films are always scarier watched at home, and this one’s missed Halloween by a week anyway.
Shaolin Soccer
Sometimes good films die a death through no fault of their own. Two of the British film industry’s biggest hits of recent years, Sexy Beast and Croupier, vanished without trace on their first release thanks to a combination of poor marketing and insufficient money for distribution. It was only after word of mouth and a decent critical response in the US that they suddenly became massive hits, and got the recognition they deserved over here.
Shaolin Soccer has been even more unlucky. On its first release in Hong Kong, its distributor neglected to take it to the Chinese censorship board; in retaliation it was banned from mainland China – one of the largest markets in the world. Despite this, it was noticed by the US, and Disney’s grown-up wing Miramax picked up distribution rights. But then they sat on it for two years without giving it a release. In the UK, it was initially meant to come out to coincide with the 2002 Football World Cup; then it was pushed back for Euro 2004. Now, having been pushed back yet again, it is at long last about to hit our cinema screens.
During the wait, pirated DVDs and internet downloads of the movie have spread through the film-buff community, buoyed by an enthusiastic online rumour mill which declared it to be one of the funniest and most original concepts to have come out of Hong Kong since Jackie Chan first started strutting his stuff. A cult film legend was born, but – as is the way of things - the filmmakers themselves have hardly seen any money from it. It has to rank as one of the most utterly unfair stories of the film world – low-budget movie becomes massive hit, but its makers are left wallowing in obscurity thanks to the ineptitude of the money men.
The fact that even in America, a country whose own concept of football involves body armour and hardly using the feet, this film received rave reviews should demonstrate amply that it is not your average soccer movie along the lines of the bland When Saturday Comes, the silly The Great Escape or the dire Mean Machine. Nor is it a typical martial arts movie, despite containing some fantastic action choreography.
What Shaolin Soccer is is an hilariously original, almost note-perfect comedy, packed with silliness, Bruce Lee homages, and the kind of football that would make even spectators at the Rangers/Celtic derby flinch. That should probably be obvious from the fact it revolves around a group of football-loving Shaolin Monks who decide to use their kung fu skills in a soccer tournament. And it’s all the brainchild of its star, Stephen Chow, who also wrote and directed. Go and see it not just for the sheer entertainment value, but also to get this poor chap the recognition (and money) he surely deserves for this superb little film.
Of course, there is almost always a downside. In this case it is, once again, the fault of the studio. For reasons best known to themselves, Miramax decided to “re-master” Shaolin Soccer before its release, and add on an English language soundtrack. As a general rule, dubbed films are never quite as good as the original versions, even if the lack of subtitles does mean you can concentrate on the action. Nonetheless, it is still well worth a look and – who knows – maybe if enough people go see it the studio will finally get its act in gear enough to do a decent DVD release with the superior original version on it.
Ladies in Lavender
It’s not often that an actor makes the switch to writer/director without making an idiot of themselves, but somehow Charles Dance has managed it. This is a masterly directorial debut from the 58-year-old star of stage and screen, based round a simple concept and some superb performances by a cast made up of some of Britain’s finest actresses.
Filmed around Cadgwith Cove in Cornwall, one of the most beautiful of the many picturesque little fishing villages of that part of the world, the story centres on two elderly sisters – one a spinster, one a widow. If you were looking for a couple of expert actresses to play elderly British sisters, I’d happily make a sizeable bet you couldn’t do much better than two who have been made Dames of the British Empire for their services to the theatre.
Yep, this film revolves around pitch-perfect performances from Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. They are - unsurprisingly for anyone who has seen them together in 1985’s A Room With A View, 1999’s Tea With Mussolini or on the stage together - a perfect partnership. With lead actresses like these it would be hard to go wrong – add the likes of Miriam Margoyles, David Warner and Natascha McElhone in supporting roles, and you have the makings of a truly expert showcase of acting talent.
Dance is astute enough a first-time helmer to allow the acting to dominate. The film is wonderfully understated, allowing the characters to live and breathe like real people as they cope with the unexpected arrival of a strange young man, played by Goodbye Lenin’s Daniel Brühl, washed ashore to shatter the insular nature of their 1930s village.
This could still so easily have become a clichéd morality tale about the dangers of mistrust and the inherent decency of mankind, as so many other small films about the turmoil created by outsiders have done before. It could have been a Wicker Man style human horror story of the bigotry and weirdness of isolated rural communities. It could have been another bland British costume drama.
Instead, Dance has crafted an unexpected gem from the original story by little-known Edwardian writer William J Locke, and produced a wonderfully low-key film which is reminiscent of the very best the British film industry had to offer in the days before it was packed out with low-budget gangster films and soppy romantic comedies.
To say much more about the story would be to spoil the delight of witnessing it unfold – always in unexpected directions, yet at the same time in ways which are utterly true to the characters, and in no way contrived. In turns funny, melancholy and heartwarming, this wonderful little film deserves to be seen, and deserves to be supported by as many cinemagoers as possible. We know Britain can’t compete with Hollywood. What the British film industry evidently can still do is produce charmingly complex yet simple character studies, and some of the best acting you are likely to see. We need more films like this.
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Renée Zellweger piles the pounds back on to return to the slightly chubby, surprisingly hard to dislike role that brought her to most people’s attention before she turned into a stick insect for Chicago. The last film saw her wandering happily off, after her hapless attempts at love, with Colin Firth’s bumbling lawyer, and it seemed like the British Carrie Bradshaw had finally found her perfect man. It was a nice, neat, simple and entertaining romantic comedy.
The original movie was three years ago now, but this one picks up only a few weeks later. The book on which this film is based, however, came out yonks ago, and the newspaper columns that was based around are a good decade old. Are people still interested in Bridget? Even her creator, writer Helen Fielding, has moved on to the sexier chick-lit spy heroine Olivia Joules, the star of her bestselling (though critically panned) novel from earlier this year.
This, of course, is part of the point of the film. Is Bridget’s hunky beau still interested in having a slightly dumpy, utterly neurotic girlfriend? The fact that he has a sexy new secretary with few qualms about stealing someone else’s boyfriend is hardly going to help Bridget’s self-confidence or faith in her man. When the sleazily charming Hugh Grant reappears as Bridget’s ex-boss (and ex-love), matters are bound only to be complicated further.
So, in short, this is much like this summer’s Shrek 2 – what happens to the overweight central character who finds their perfect partner after their fairytale comes true? Again like Shrek 2, the message of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason is a simple (and identical) one – in love, act like yourself, because that’s what they fell in love with in the first place. As soon as Bridget starts having doubts, she starts distrusting her ideal man; with the doubts and her changed attitude to the relationship come all the problems.
Thankfully, Zellweger has managed to recreate the ditzy central character perfectly – despite the last few years spent winning Oscars and starving herself – and Grant and Firth are the perfect back-up. Cameo and supporting appearances from top British talent like Jim Broadbent, Celia Imrie, Jessica Stephenson and Sally Philips all add to the sense of cosy familiarity.
But then again, this is a Working Title film, made by the same company and co-written by the same person that was behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually and the like – of course it’s going to feel cosy and familiar, because all their films are basically the same. That is the whole point. If you aren’t into this sort of romantic comedy, replete with bumblingly nervous Brits and embarrassingly unlikely situations, you aren’t going to enjoy it one iota. But if you’ve enjoyed the other films from this stable, you’ll have a great time with this one too. It’s hardly brilliant, but at least it has the decency to be funny and endearing. Much like Bridget herself…
Birth
Jonathan “Sexy Beast” Glazer’s latest reunites modern sexy star Nicole Kidman with one of the last remaining screen sirens of the Holywood Golden Age, Lauren Bacall, after their depressingly unpleasant arthouse outing in last year’s superb Dogville. Since then, Bacall’s public statements about Kidman’s lack of star status have hit the headlines, but here, with Bacall playing Kidman’s mother, there are few signs of any off-screen animosity between the two leading ladies.
This is, like so many of her recent outings, utterly Kidman’s film. She should be careful – if she continues to play these put-upon, psychologically damaged women all the time she may end up typecasting herself as a gibbering and confused wreck. We’ve had her Oscar-winning turn as Virginia Woolfe in The Hours, her mysterious moll in Dogville and her terrified mother in The Others, a film which sounds so similar in basic plot terms to Birth that if glancing at capsule summaries it would be easy to mistake the two.
Whereas The Others saw Kidman confused and beset by apparent horrors in a relentlessly creepy psychological semi-horror while acting alongside two children, here she is confused and beset by apparent horrors in a relentlessly creepy psychological semi-horror while, erm… acting alongside a child.
Kidman is Anna, a widow finally coming to terms with her husband’s death and set to remarry. In one of those classic horror motifs, used in much-loved movies from The Exorcist and The Omen through Poltergeist and Village of the Damned, the creepiness comes in the form of a child – played by the highly talented 10-year-old Canadian, Cameron Bright. The boy demands to speak with Anna alone, only to tell her that he is the reincarnation of her dead husband and that he heartily disapproves of her fiancée.
Thankfully, however, Glazer is an astute enough director (and co-writer) not to go for a clichéd psycho-kiddie approach. This is not really a horror film at all, more a psychological exploration of bereavement. How would any of us cope if a dead loved one appeared to return, even if in an utterly different form to how we knew them? What if reincarnation did exist, and the dead could remain fully aware of their past lives? How would they cope, and how would those who once knew them and who have tried to rebuild their lives deal with it?
With such questions being posed, this is unsurprisingly not a typical Hollywood explosions and guns affair. Slow-moving but well-paced, it may well be a tad heavy for a Saturday night first date, but it deals with the issues it raises in a thought-provoking and sometimes intelligent manner which could well prompt a decent post-movie discussion if you’re out on your third or fourth. For those of us not in the dating game, it’s another chance to see Kidman do what she does so well and come out of the cinema wondering what we’d have done in her shoes. Personally I’d probably have laughed it off, patted the kid on the head and popped off down the pub, but to each their own, eh?
Beyond the Sea
Does anyone under fifty know who Bobby Darin was? The 1950s/60s Rock’n’Roll singer, actor and entertainer was, for a time, a fairly big name and a bit of a teen idol, but even at the time was never able to compete with the likes of his contemporaries Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis. Probably his best known song is his version of “Mack the Knife”, taken from Kurt Weill’s and Bertolt Brech’s The Threepenny Opera, but the take on the same song by jazz legend Louis Armstrong is almost certainly more familiar to today’s music lovers. Since his death in 1973 he has faded into obscurity.
At first glance he’d seem a very odd choice for a biopic. Add to this the fact that the actor playing him is eight years older than Darin was when he died, it seems even odder.
Thankfully, the actor in the lead is the always watchable, immensely versatile Kevin Spacey, who also directs – and even does his own singing. In fact, this has been his pet project for years (which is part of the reason he is now a tad old for the part). Add to Spacey’s presence the fact that the screenwriters include the people responsible for the superb biopics Quiz Show, Donny Brasco and Bugsy, and the project starts to look interesting.
The thing is, although Bobby Darin is now mostly forgotten, his life makes for perfect biopic material. Hit by a severe rheumatic fever as a child, he wasn’t expected to live beyond the age of fifteen, and suffered near-crippling heart problems throughout his life. He was born on the wrong side of the tracks, brought up in a poor single-parent family, and was Italian-American at a time when such a background still ensured serious prejudice in the entertainment industry in which he determined to make his career.
It really is the classic biopic – bad childhood, beats the odds, fame, love, rejection, involvement in major events, tragic death. Luckily, Spacey is not only a good enough actor to keep the audience entertained, but an imaginative enough director to create an interesting film out of material which could have created yet another worthy but bland movie about someone’s interesting life.
It should come as little surprise that Spacey is a good director – why else would he have been given the responsibility of running London’s prestigious Old Vic theatre? – yet still his accomplishment in twisting time and reality to provide a continuous link between the poor, ill child and wealthy superstar and the music and the man is impressive. His inventiveness has turned this into an interesting film in its own right, even without the strong central plot of Darin’s event-packed life.
What could seem gimmicky - a street breaks into a full-on dance routine, the old Darin talks to his childhood self – actually works very well. With the support of actors of the calibre of John Goodman, Bob Hoskins, Kate Bosworth and Greta Scacchi, plus – to emphasise the point – the fact that Spacey does all his own song and dance routines, and does them amazingly, this is actually a pretty damn good movie.
Is it enough to revive the memory of Bobby Darin? That remains to be seen. What it is, however, is an accomplished and interesting film from a talented director featuring a superb central performance from one of today’s best actors. You can’t ask for a lot more than that.
