Management

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Rating 2¾


Written and directed by Steve Belber

Starring Jennifer Aniston (Sue Claussen), Steve Zahn (Mike Flux), Wood Harrelson (Jango), Fred Ward (Jerry Flux), Margo Martindale (Trish Flux) and James Hiroyuki Liao (Al)


Mike Flux, the night manager of his parents’ motel in Arizona, develops a crush on Sue Claussen, a passing visitor from Baltimore. He follows her back there and their relationship develops, but the road to true love is a rocky one and she leaves Baltimore for Washington State to get back together with an old boyfriend.

...


‘Management’ is a low-key indie rom-com. It contains all the expected quirks of its genre, but despite a decidedly peculiar opening fifteen minutes or so, it gradually becomes a rather heartfelt story, thanks in no small part to a decent screenplay and some good performances. Certainly, Steve Zahn’s character Mike is initially rather creepy, almost a kind of comic Norman Bates, but it is possible to start to warm to him as the film progresses. Equally, the seemingly odd behaviour of Jennifer Aniston’s character Sue begins to make a little more sense as we learn that she is, like Mike, lonely and, in her own way, directionless.

The film received mixed reviews and has a 46% rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 94 reviews. It received a limited theatrical release and grossed $2.2 million. It probably deserves to be compared to Aniston’s excellent 2002 indie film ‘The Good Girl’.

Review posted on 21 November 2010


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Creature

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Rating 2¼


Directed by William Malone

Written by William Malone and Alan Reed

Starring Stan Ivar (Mike Davison), Wendy Schaal (Beth Sladen), Lyman Ward (David Parkins), Robert Jaffe (Jon Fennel), Diane Salinger (Melanie Bryce), Annette McCarthy (Dr Wendy Oliver) and Klaus Kinski (Hans Rudy Hofner)


During exploration of the Saturn moon Titan, two American astronauts uncover the remains of an ancient civilisation and unwittingly release a terrifying alien creature. When a subsequent space mission to Titan discovers that a German space expedition beat them to it and then finds horribly mutilated bodies in the German spacecraft, they are plunged into a desperate fight for survival.

...


‘Creature’ is a cheap and cheerful 1985 b-movie rip-off of ‘Alien’, directed and co-written by William Malone, who seems to specialise in such things. The acting is at best adequate, the direction stolid and mundane and the special effects primitive. However, it races along at a jaunty pace and doesn’t take itself too seriously. It also boasts a suitably inexplicable appearance by Klaus Kinski.

This is not a film to remember, but there is no reason why fans of slightly crummy sci-fi monster movies should not find something to enjoy here.

Review posted on 21 November 2010


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Case 39

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Rating 2


Directed by Christian Alvert

Written by Ray Wright

Starring Renée Zellweger (Emily Jenkins), Jodelle Ferland (Lillith Sullivan), Ian McShane (Detective Mike Barren), Bradley Cooper (Douglas J Ames), Adrian Lester (Wayne), Cynthia Stevenson (Nancy), Alexander Conti (Diego Ramirez), Kerry O’Malley (Margaret Sullivan) and Callum Keith Rennie (Edward Sullivan)


Emily Jenkins is a social worker who already has 38 active cases, but is given two more to add to her impossible workload. She wearily picks up the first one and is fascinated by the case of 10-year-old Lillith Sullivan. After visiting the parents, she becomes convinced that Lillith is in real danger, but there is no evidence to allow her to act. However, she gives Lillith her cell phone number and after a terrified late night call she rushes to the Sullivan house, putting a call into her friend, the police detective Mike Barren. They break down the door and discover that the parents are attempting to roast their daughter alive in the oven. Emily is given temporary custody of Lillith while a suitable foster family is found for her, but she soon begins to realise that Lillith is not all that she seems.

...


The German film director Christian Alvert came to the attention of Hollywood following his 2005 film ‘Antikörper’ (Antibodies). The science-fiction film ‘Pandorum’ was his first American venture to be released and that was followed by the horror film ‘Case 39’, which was filmed in late 2006 and originally due for release in February 2008. It was eventually released into New Zealand cinemas in August 2009, followed by numerous other markets around the world, but it was not until October 2010 that it limped out in America. Reaction to the film was generally negative and it has a 22% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 63 collected reviews. It had a production budget of $26 million and grossed a little over $28 million at the box office.

The film deals with a tried and tested horror theme that children are evil and often possessed by the Devil. The obvious influences here do not take too much guessing – ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘The Omen’. The film does need to be taken with a pinch of salt and does require a willing suspension of disbelief; not, oddly, because of the supernatural or horror element, but in response to more mundane moments in the plot. It beggars belief that Emily, the children’s social worker, would be permitted to become Lillith’s temporary carer and guardian. Perhaps even harder to believe is the manner in which Mike Barren, who had previously been seriously skeptical and concerned for Emily’s psychological health, so easily changes his mind and comes to believe her story, based on just one very indistinct and ambiguous phone call. This particular moment in the film and the scenes immediately after it seem rushed and yet the film generally rather drags and is a good 20 minutes too long. It runs out of steam long before the end. Having said this, there are some very effective individual scenes along the way and the film is not a complete dud.

I am not fond of Renée Zelleweger’s acting style and find her quite difficult to watch, but she is okay here as far as it goes. Jodelle Ferland is suitably creepy and unpleasant in the role of Lillith. It’s always nice to see Cynthia Stevenson in a film, although she has a small and a relatively inconsequential role.

Review posted 21 November 2010

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Batman Begins

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Rating 2


Directed by Christopher Nolan

Written by Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer, based on the comic books by Bob Kane and Bill Finger

Starring Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne / Batman), Michael Caine (Alfred Pennyworth), Liam Neeson (Henri Ducard), Katie Holmes (Rachel Dawes), Rutger Hauer (William Earle), Gary Oldman (Sgt James Gordon), Cillian Murphy (Dr Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow), Tom Wilkinson (Carmine Falcone), Mark Boone (Detective Arnold Flass), Linus Roache (Thomas Wayne), Sara Stewart (Martha Wayne), Ken Watanabe (Ra’s al Ghul) and Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox)


Young Bruce Wayne witnesses the murder of his parents. He returns to Gotham City as an adult, intent on revenge against the killer, who is then assassinated before he can do so. He decides to immerse himself in the criminal underworld to try to understand the motivation to do evil and ends up in a hellish prison. He escapes and encounters Henri Ducard, who leads him to Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Shadows, where he undergoes rigorous training, intended to rid him of his fear and turn him into a fearless fighter. He is told of a plan to purge Gotham of evil by destroying the city, but he refuses to have anything to do with it. He returns to Gotham and with the help of Alfred Pennyworth, the loyal Wayne family butler, he sets about creating an alter-ego, Batman, to help rid the city of corruption.

...

I should start by mentioning that ‘Batman Begins’ has an 85% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 254 reviews, 215 of those reviews judged to have been favourable.

It took me three attempts to watch the whole of the film. I all but gave up after the first 45 minutes or so, having become increasingly irritated by the relentless ninja nonsense. I later returned to the film for a second try, picking it up where I had stopped watching. Once the action moved back to Gotham and Batman made a first appearance, things improved marginally, but still I grew restless within the hour. I came back to the film the next day to finish watching it, but I had largely lost interest before the end came.

So, what is wrong with the film? Probably nothing very much, but I just didn’t like it. Much was made of the fact that the film and directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan and clearly it has been made with some skill. It was, we were repeatedly told, a much darker interpretation of Batman, which I guess is true if by dark they mean silly. I found the comic-book fight scenes excruciatingly boring, but that is something I knew to expect, because it has increasingly become a problem in these types of blockbuster films.

Most troublesome, though, was my dislike of Christian Bale’s performance in the lead role. I had not previously seen a Christian Bale film and I was undoubtedly guilty of some bias because of the spectacularly appalling rant he was responsible for on the set of ‘Terminator Salvation’. Irrespective of the excuses that have been made for his behaviour, and his own subsequent apology, he is quite clearly an arsehole. However, it is tempting to suspect that this kind of behaviour is commonplace and Bale is only really guilty of having his outburst made public. It should not necessarily affect judgement of his acting. I was just left cold by his take on Batman. I didn’t like Katie Holmes either, although I have seen performances in other films and not come away with any negative opinions. She was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal in the sequel, ‘The Dark Knight’. Cillian Murphy seemed to be channelling the spirit of Christian Slater, which I found rather off-putting, because it was all I could focus on whenever he was on the screen. Having said that, the concept of the Scarecrow was quite effective.

The remainder of the lead cast did exactly what you would expect from them and this was probably the saving grace for me. I was happy enough to watch Michael Caine and Rutger Hauer and rather impressed by Liam Neeson, although the true identity of his character was blatantly obvious to me right from the start, without any knowledge of the comic book source material. The revelation, so I have subsequently read, was supposed to come as a shock. I find this very hard to believe, so glaringly obvious was it. The Ming the Merciless facial hair did rather give it away.

‘Batman Begins’ had a production budget of $150 million and grossed a not entirely overwhelming $323 million at the box office. It was ranked eighth in the annual domestic box office list for 2005, but its gross was dwarfed by that of its sequel ‘The Dark Knight’ three years later, a film that garnered considerable additional publicity because of the untimely death of Heath Ledger, who won a posthumous best supporting actor Academy Award for his performance as the Joker.

Review posted 7 June 2010


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Cloverfield

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Rating 2¾


Directed by Matt Reeves

Written by Drew Goddard

Starring Michael Stahl-David (Rob Hawkins), Mike Vogel (Jason Hawkins), T J Miller (Hudson Platt), Odette Yustman (Beth McIntyre), Lizzy Caplan (Marlena Diamond), Jessica Lucas (Lily Ford) and Ben Feldman (Travis)


A surprise going away party is arranged for Rob Hawkins, who is about to leave Manhattan to take up a new job in Japan. His brother Jason persuades their friend Hud Platt to use a camera to film testimonials to Rob given by party guests. The party begins to sour when Beth McIntyre, who Rob has recently slept with, arrives with a new boyfriend, and it is then disrupted by what appears to have been an earthquake. When the guests go up onto the roof they discover that vast areas of Manhattan are ablaze and when they go out onto the street below they are nearly killed when the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty comes crashing down just metres from them. Manhattan is under attack from a monstrous alien creature.

...


I missed out on most of the early hype that surrounded ‘Cloverfield’ before its theatrical release at the beginning of 2008. I don’t recall exactly when I became aware of it, but what caught my attention initially was that it had been written by Drew Goddard, who had contributed episodes to the seventh and final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even so, by the time the film arrived in Britain I had been put off by the hype and although I remained interested to see it, I was not convinced that I could sit through a film made to look like everything had been shot through a shaky hand-held camera. It has taken me more than two years to finally get around to watching it.

The lengthy opening, in which we learn but don’t care that Rob has slept with his friend Beth and now a month later a party is being thrown in his honour before he departs for Japan, is not interesting enough to be diverting. It merely served to make me impatient and question whether or not I wanted to sit through this film. It doesn’t help that the characters struggle to leave any lasting impression. Because the film did not hold my attention enough in the opening scenes I kept confusing Rob and his brother Jason. Hud was only distinguishable because he was the one behind the camera – and because he was rather annoying. At least I recognised the actress Lizzy Caplan, who I had seen before in ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘Tru Blood’.

The concept is an interesting one and it is achieved with some skill and success. Some people consider it to be a brilliant and adventurous work at a time when the industry, Hollywood specifically, is in a state of dire creative doldrums. I would not go that far. The film is clearly drawing on ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and cinéma vérité is hardly a new approach to film making. The shaky hand-held camera proved not to be as annoying as I feared it might be, but there were times when I wished we could have another view and perhaps a bit more characterisation. Having said that, the plight of these nondescript people caught in an entirely inexplicable situation and doing something that defies logic, which they themselves capture on film more of less accidently, is quite effective and could have been quite affecting.

A question I repeatedly asked myself was why Hud kept on filming, when clearly he would have a greater chance of escaping the clutches of the monster if he wasn’t hindered by having a camera on his shoulder. This was explained to some degree at one point in the film, but not in a way that I felt was altogether convincing. I found the monster disappointing. It was a lot more “Aliens” than I was expecting, having read review after review that made reference to ‘Godzilla’. As Xander said about the 1998 ‘Godzilla’ remake in the Buffy episode ‘Dirty Girls’, which was, incidentally, written by Drew Goddard, “Matthew Broderick did not kill Godzilla. He killed a big, dumb lizard. That was not the real Godzilla.”

I like the fact that no explanation is ever offered for what is happening, but I was quite glad to see the end arrive. The film, at least, has a relatively short running time and does not outstay its welcome. It’s a good film, no doubt, but one that will probably be enjoyed a lot more by some people than others.

‘Cloverfield’ has a 76% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 190 reviews. It grossed a little under $171 million at the box office against a production budget of $25 million. There has been some talk about a sequel.

Review posted 5 June 2010


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Malice in Wonderland

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Rating 2


Directed by Simon Fellows

Written by Jayson Rothwell, loosely based on ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll

Starring Maggie Grace (Alice), Danny Dyer (Whitey), Nathaniel Parker (Harry Hunt), Pam Ferris (The Duchess), Matt King (Gonzo), Antony Higgins (Rex), Paul Kaye (Caterpillar), Gary Beadle (Felix Chester), Steve Haze (Midge), Amanda Boxer (Bag Lady) and Bronagh Gallagher (Hattie)


An American student is knocked over by a black cab while being chased by a couple of goons. Although she is not seriously hurt, the collision leaves her suffering from amnesia. Whitey, the taxi driver, puts her in the back of his vehicle and says he will help her, but first he has to collect a gift for a notorious underworld boss and he is already late. Alice is thrown into a surreal after-dark world of crime and bizarre characters as she tries to remember who she is and get home.

...


‘Malice in Wonderland’ is an unusual take on the Lewis Carroll story, played out as a kind of comic version of a Guy Ritchie gangster flick. The film critic Kim Newman, writing in Empire magazine, called it a “genuinely original interpretation”, but in general it was received with far less welcoming words. Ten reviews collected at Rotten Tomatoes result in a 10% rotten rating.

I really wanted to like the film and I was certainly looking forward to watching it. In the event, I cannot pretend that it wasn’t a slight disappointment. The look of the film, all tacky neon and suffused lighting, is effective, but the performances are relentlessly quirky, which can become become rather irritating.

Danny Dyer, who has recently attracted much bad publicity as a result of an ill-informed and badly thought-out ghost-written item in the utterly appalling and reprehensible lads mag ‘Zoo’, plays to type as a small-time crook. He has so far failed to build on the early promise he showed as an actor. Maggie Grace, in the central role, phones in an uninvolved and uninvolving performance. She has been effective in the past, but here she simply seems miscast, all at sea and uninterested. She signed up as a last-minute replacement for Mischa Barton, but she seems to have no great passion for the part. However, in the original story Alice is a largely uninvolved and bemused bystander to the surreal events taking place around her, so perhaps Grace has not approached her performance without giving it at least some thought.

I liked ‘Malice in Wonderland’ enough to watch it twice, but I cannot imagine it is a film I would recommend to anyone else. The film it most reminds me of is Martin Scorsese’s 1985 black comedy ‘After Hours’.

Review posed 23 May 2010


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The Box

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Rating 2¾


Directed by Richard Kelly

Written by Richard Kelly, based on the short story ‘Button, Button’ by Richard Matheson

Starring Cameron Diaz (Norma Lewis), James Marsden (Arthur Lewis), Frank Langella (Arlington Stewart), Sam Oz Stone (Walter Lewis), Holmes Osborne (Dick Burns), Gillian Jacobs (Dana / Sarah Matthews), Deborah Rush (Clymene Steward), Ryan Woodle (Lucas Carnes), James Rebhorn (Norm Cahill), Celia Weston (Lana Burns) and Allyssa Maurice (Suzanne Weller)


A package containing a strange box with a button locked inside a clear Perspex dome is left on the doorstep of the home of Norma Lewis, a teacher, and her husband Arthur, a NASA engineer. Norma then receives a visit from a mysterious stranger who is missing a large chunk of the left side of his face. He introduces himself as Arlington Stewart and tells Norma if she and her husband unlock the box and press the button someone they do not know will die, but they will receive one million dollars. Arthur is sure it must be a hoax, but when Norma presses the button Arlington Stewart once again calls to hand over a briefcase full of money. However, Norma and Arthur are filled with guilt and their lives begin to spiral out of control as they are overtaken by increasingly surreal events that have tragic consequences.

...


Writer-director Richard Kelly made an immediate impact with his critically acclaimed debut full-length feature ‘Donnie Darko’ in 2001. Its belated follow-up ‘Southland Tales’ was finally released in 2007 after a troubled gestation to a suspiciously gratuitous mauling from some critics. It is certainly an over-ambitious sprawling mess of a film, but I like it. ‘The Box’ is Kelly’s most recent film, based on ‘Button, Button’, a 1970 short story by Richard Matheson that was made into an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ in 1986.

‘The Box’ shares many similarities with Richard Kelly’s previous work, ‘Donnie Darko’ in particular, and is certainly typical of his established style, with its themes of science and metaphysics. It is very slow moving and resolutely downbeat. I must admit that for a time I found it bordering on being quite simply boring, but I wanted to know what happened and that kept me watching, until eventually I just seemed to slip into the rhythm of the film. I suspect it is a film that would benefit from repeat viewings and I would like to watch again sometime, but perhaps not in a hurry.

‘The Box’ was greeted with very mixed reviews, many of them negative. It has a 45% rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 132 reviews. It grossed just over $29 million at the box office against a production budget of $30 million.

Review posted 3 May 2010


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Star Trek (2009 film)

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Rating 3¼


Directed by J J Abrams

Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, based on characters created by Gene Roddenberry

Starring Chris Pine (James T Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Karl Urban (Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy), Zoe Saldana (Nyota Uhura), John Cho (Hikaru Sulu), Anton Yelchin (Pavel Chekov), Simon Pegg (Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott), Eric Bana (Captain Nero), Chris Greenwood (Christopher Pike), Ben Cross (Sarek), Wynona Ryder (Amanda Grayson), Chris Hemsworth (George Samuel Kirk) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock)


When Starfleet receives a distress signal from the planet Vulcan, cadets are mobilised for active service on awaiting starships. Commander Spock is assigned to the starship USS Enterprise, which is captained by Christopher Pike. A junior Starfleet physician, Dr Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, smuggles aboard his friend James T Kirk, a rebellious cadet who has been suspended from active duty following a charge brought against him by Spook. As the Enterprise travels at warp speed towards the stricken planet, Kirk realises that something is seriously wrong and it is somehow connected to the death of his father many years earlier.

...


Development on ‘Star Trek’ began in early 2005. The last Star Trek film, ‘Nemesis’, had been released in December 2002 to generally unenthusiastic reviews and grossed a little over $67 million at the box office against a production budget of $60 million. The last (to date) television series, ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’, ran for four seasons, but suffered from sharply declining audience figures before coming to an end in May 2005. ‘Star Trek’ was intended to “re-boot” the franchise, going right back to the beginning to tell the story of how the original characters first met and became the crew of the starship USS Enterprise.

The “re-boot” was placed in the hands of ‘Lost’ co-creators and producers J J Abrams (who directed the film) and Damon Lindelof. The screenplay was written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who, alongside Abrams, are the co-creators of the television series ‘Fringe’. The film utilised extensive state of the art special effects and had a production budget of $150 million. It grossed a little over $385 million at the box office. Its domestic gross a little under £258 million placed it at No.7 in the yearly list for 2009.

I am not a devoted fan of Star Trek. I watched the original iconic late-1960s television series as a child and teenager and loved it. There was a time when I watched ‘Next Generation’ regularly, but that is many years ago and I am perhaps not as keen on it in retrospective. I can take or leave ‘Deep Space Nine’; I don’t mind watching the occasional episode, but it is not something I would wish to watch regularly. I didn’t like ‘Voyager’ very much and missed out on ‘Enterprise’ altogether. I have seen most, but not necessarily all of the various feature films and oddly the one that probably stands out most for me is ‘Nemesis’, which was not universally well received.

There are all manner of ways in which ‘Star Trek’ could have been a monumental disaster, but it proved to be anything but; not only performing well (if not spectacularly) at the box office, but also garnering good reviews from critics. 279 reviews collected at Rotten Tomatoes result in a 94% fresh rating. I don’t know what reaction was like amongst “Trekkers” (or “Trekkies”), but while the nature of fandom dictates that there was probably plenty of criticism, I am not aware of any widespread backlash against the film.

It’s not perfect. The special effects are extremely impressive, but an over-abundance of effects and constant in-your-face frenetic action sequences are not to all tastes. It can become exhausting and the depiction of Kirk as almost super-human, apparently able to withstand any amount of punishment, does wear out its welcome after a while. The film tumbles into extreme schmaltz on several occasions, but this is actually quite affecting, more so than nauseating, which it so easily could have been. I wasn’t sure what to make of the relationship of Spock and Uhura. I don’t know where that came from, but I guess I must have forgotten something from the original television series.

What most struck me was the near-perfect casting of the main characters, with one notable exception. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, in particular, give performances that, while they are not impersonations, are scarily accurate. Pine, without attempting to duplicate William Shatner’s inimitable acting style, is sensational, although ultimately it is perhaps Quinto who steals the film. Each actor, it seems, was free to take elements from the performances of the original actors and incorporate these into their own interpretation of the role. It works superbly well. The one exception, I thought, was Simon Pegg as Scotty, which is a pity because I like Simon Pegg a lot.

I must admit I did struggle with the film during the first twenty or thirty minutes. It was slipping into boredom for me and the two-dimensional portrayal of Kirk as a troubled and rebellious child/teenager/young man almost had me reaching for the off button. However, things improved as soon as they were on the Enterprise. Leonard Nimoy’s appearance as Spock is beautifully incorporated into the story, although as the film closes and we hear those famous words, “Space... the Final Frontier,” I just think they should have been spoken by William Shatner, not Nimoy.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and I was very pleasantly surprised.

Review posted 20 April 2010


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Mannequin

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Rating 2


Directed by Michael Gottileb

Written by Michael Gottileb and Edward Rugoff

Starring Andrew McCarthy (Jonathan Switcher), Kim Cattrall (Emmy Hasure), Carole Davis (Roxie Shield), James Spader (Mr Richards), G W Bailey (Captain Felix Maxwell), Cristopher Maher (Armand), Steve Vinovich (B J Wert) and Estelle Getty (Mrs Claire Timkin)


Jonathan Switcher goes through a succession of dead end jobs until one day a mannequin he created comes to life and his life is transformed. He finds work creating displays in a department store, but soon finds himself in conflict with his girlfriend Roxie, the store’s Vice-president Mr Richards and its officious and incompetent security guard Felix Maxwell. He falls in love with the dummy, a woman from ancient Egypt called Emahauser, who only comes to life when she can be seen by no one else but him. His displays cause a sensation and he becomes a target for the owner of a rival department store.

...


‘Mannequin’ is a 1987 romcom. Everything about the film screams the 1980s and that is a decade I continue to struggle with. Such an outlook makes it difficult to view a film like this with anything approaching an objective response, although as time moves on I am beginning to feel less anger about the horror of Thatcherism, perhaps because what has subsequently occurred has proved to be a kind of watered-down and deceitful version of it, which has been, if anything, even more repulsive and damaging. The film is a typical product of its time, a shallow decade of ostentatious greed that at least had its own very distinctive identity. What we are left with now, seemingly a result of that decade, is pastiche and rampant greed that has gone so far out of control there is no pulling it back.

There is not much to be said about ‘Mannequin’. It’s a silly, kitschy and, in retrospect, almost endearing film that stands the test of time as a harmless artefact of its period. Andrew McCarthy was one of the so-called “Brat Pack” and his other hit films from the era include ‘St Elmo’s Fire’ and ‘Pretty in Pink’. Fans of ‘Sex in the City’ may find some interest in the presence of Kim Cattrall in one of her earlier roles. Estelle Getty (‘The Golden Girls’) and G W Bailey (the ‘Police Academy’ films) also feature and there is a truly awful performance by James Spader.

‘Mannequin’ was not popular with critics, but it grossed nearly $43 million at the domestic box office, more than ‘Pretty in Pink’ the previous year. It is No.27 in the domestic gross list for 1987, one place behind ‘Wall Street’ and one in front of the Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah comedy ‘Roxanne’.

A sequel, ‘Mannequin: On the Move’, starring Kristy Swanson, followed in 1991.

Review posted 12 April 2010


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Quatermass II

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Rating 2¾


Directed by Val Guest

Written by Nigel Kneale and val Guest, based on the original BBC serial written by Nigel Kneale

Starring Brian Donlevy (Professor Bernard Quatermass), John Longden (Inspector Lomax), Sid James (Jimmy Hall), William Franklyn (Brand), Bryan Forbes (Marsh), Vera Day (Sheila), Charles Lloyd Pack (Dawson), Percy Herbert (Gorman), Michael Ripper (Ernie) and Jogn Rae (McLeod)


Professor Bernard Quatermass is angry after his request for more funds for his planned exploration of the Moon is rejected, but he is intrigued by the meteorite shower his team has been tracking and by the sample they have analysed. He travels to Winnerden Flats, the area where the meteorites were concentrated and discovers what appears to be a fully-functioning replica of his planned Moon base. His colleague Marsh is badly burned by ammonia gas from one of the fallen rocks that leaves a strange V shape mark on his skin. Quatermass is warned away by armed guards and when he is given a hostile reception in the nearby town he goes to Inspector Lomax at Scotland Yard for help investigating the true purpose of the secret base.

...


‘The Quatermass Xperiment’ in 1955 was a Hammer Films production based on the 1953 BBC television serial. The commercial success of that film resulted in ‘Quatermass II’ in 1957, also based on a BBC serial. Nigel Kneale, who wrote the BBC serials, was involved in writing the screenplay this time around, with input by producer Anthony Hinds and subsequent re-writes by the director Val Guest. The American actor Brian Donlevy returned as Bernard Quatermass, much to Kneale’s annoyance, who considered him, quite rightly, to be miscast in the role. Kneale also claimed that Donlevy was an alcoholic who was paralytic on the set and could barely read his lines off the idiot boards that were being used because he was incapable of memorising them. Guest claimed that these allegations were not true, saying Donlevy was very professional, although he did concede that the actor laced his coffee with whisky and was “not stone cold sober either”.

Donlevy was cast as a deliberate ploy to make the ‘Quatermass’ films more appealing to American distributors. He is not a perfect match for the role, but not a bad one, and his performance is fine. If he really was “crippled with drink” as Nigel Kneale claimed it doesn’t show. Reginald Tate had played the lead role in the first BBC serial, but following his sudden death in 1955 he was replaced at short notice by John Robinson for the second serial. The role was played by André Morell in the third BBC serial and subsequently by Andrew Keir, John Mills and Jason Flemyng.

The film rattles along at a brisk pace and doesn’t suffer for the general absence of special effects. A Shell oil-refinery doubled as the secret complex where the aliens are plotting their colonisation of Earth. We do not see the alien creatures until the final moments of the film and then only through the gloom of night cover. They are typical of the period, not at all convincing and yet somehow more effective than many of today’s state-of-the-art CGI effects. Fans of the ‘Carry On’ films would perhaps be interested to see Sid James in one of his earlier non-comic roles.

‘Quatermass II’ has been widely interpreted as an attack on the Conservative government at the time.

Review posted 7 April 2010


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Jumanji

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Rating 3¾


Directed by Joe Johnston

Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor and Jim Strain, based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg

Starring Robin Williams (Alan Parrish), Kirsten Dunst (Judy Shepherd), Bradley Pierce (Peter Shepherd), Bonnie Hunt (Sarah Whittle), Bebe Neuwirth (Nora Shepherd), David Alan Grier (Carl Bentley), Jonathan Hyde (Van Pelt / Sam Parrish), Patricia Clarkson (Carol-Anne Parrish), Adam Hann-Byrd (Young Alan) and Laura Bell Bundy (Young Sarah)


12-year-old Alan Parrish is bullied by other boys because of his friendship with Sarah Whittle. His father is a cold and distant figure in his life who plans to send him away to boarding school. Alan finds a strange board game that had been buried a hundred years previously and is literally sucked into the game when he and Sarah start to play it. She flees from the house in terror, pursued by African bats, but nobody believes her story of what happened and Alan’s disappearance remains a mystery from that day on. Twenty-six years later Nora Shepherd moves into the house once occupied by the Parrish family with her young niece and nephew Judy and Peter. Their parents were killed in an automobile accident. The children find the board game in the attic and when they start to play it they release Alan, now a fully-grown man, but (with the help of Alan and Sarah) they must complete the game to save the local community from the chaos and destruction they have unwittingly unleashed.

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‘Jumanji’ is a 1995 family film based on a 1981 illustrated children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg, who also wrote ‘The Polar Express’. The film employed what were then state-of-the-art special affects and had a production budget of $65 million. It grossed just under $263 million at the box office. Reviews were mixed. 26 reviews are collected at Rotten Tomatoes and result in a 50% rating. At Metacritic the rating is 39% from 18 reviews. At Amazon the brief write-up by Jeff Shannon describes the films as, “A chaotic and misguided attempt at family entertainment, the movies does offer a few good laughs, and the effects are frequently impressive, if not entirely convincing to the eye.”

I certainly agree about the special effects, which are at once impressive (although slightly ragged looking fifteen years on) and yet strangely unconvincing. However, this is a film I like very much. I did not see the film at the cinema and I have never owned a copy on video or DVD, but I have now watched it about half-a-dozen times when it has been shown on television and I have enjoyed it immensely each time.

It’s a spirited romp with a touch of invention in the story and a perfect vehicle for the feverish mugging that is the stock-in-trade of Robin Williams. He is on good form here, but his over-the-top antics do not overwhelm the film and his odd combination of frenetic over-acting and mawkish sentimentality (a kind of mixture of the Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin) works impeccably. The film has a strong cast generally, including 13-year-old Kirsten Dunst, a year after ‘Interview with the Vampire’, and a blink and you might miss her appearance by Patricia Clarkson.

‘Jumanji’ is a contender for my all-time favourite family/children’s film. Great stuff.

Review posted 22 March 2010


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Possession

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Rating 1 (2 on second viewing)


Directed by Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist

Written by Michael Petroni, based on the film‘Addicted’, written by Byun Won-mi

Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar (Jessica), Lee Pace (Roman), Michael Landes (Ryan), Tuva Novotny (Casey), Chelah Horsdal (Miranda), Dhirendra (Dr Rajan) and William B Davis (Hypnotist)


Jessica and Ryan are happily married, although Jessica is not as attentive to the marriage as her husband. His troubled younger brother Roman, who has recently been released from prison following a six month conviction for aggravated assault, is temporarily living with them, an arrangement that Jessica finds increasingly difficult. Following a freak automobile accident that leaves both Ryan and Roman in a coma, Roman awakes, now claiming to believe that he is Ryan, leaving Jessica to try to come to terms with her own feelings of guilt and loss.

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‘Possession’ is an American remake of a 2002 South Korean film called ‘Addicted’ (or ‘Jungdok’). The film was first announced in 2006 and originally set for release in February 2008, but when the production company Yari Film Group experienced financial problems it resulted in a number of delays, until finally it was released direct to DVD in March 2010.

The film is a melancholy psychological thriller with supernatural overtones that follows a similar pattern to previous Sarah Michelle Gellar films ‘The Grudge’ and ‘The Return’. However, unlike those two films, it just does not work. There is little suspense or foreboding and there does not appear to be much obvious on-screen chemistry between Gellar and Lee Pace, both of whom are competent actors who give uninvolving performances here. The film is rather threadbare and somewhat botched and quite simply fails in almost every aspect.

I consider myself to be a fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s work and although the last film in which she took a starring role that made any appreciably commercial impact was ‘The Grudge’ in 2004, I think she has made some very worthwhile films since that time, even if she seems not to attract much critical support for her choices. However, ‘Possession’ is very poor, much like ‘Suburban Girl’ in 2007, another rare Gellar film that was, I concluded, somewhat less than inspiring.

Additional: Having watched the film for a second time, some of my previous criticisms no longer apply. It is, I have decided, not as bad as my initial impression of it suggested and both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lee Pace give better performances than I had at first concluded. However, I do feel that the film fails to fire on all cylinders - it seems largely stuck in second gear and rarely gets any further than third. Perhaps my biggest criticism is that the portrayal of Ryan’s undying love for Jessica in the opening scenes comes across not so much as romantic and inspiring, but overly sentimental and even a little creepy.

Original review posted 7 March 2010 - additional comments added on 10 March 2010


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Leap Year

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Rating 1½


Directed by Anand Tucker

Written by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont

Starring Amy Adams (Anna Brady), Matthew Goode (Declan), Adam Scott (Jeremy), John Lithgow (Jack Brady), Kaitlin Olson (Libby)

Anna and Jeremy have been dating for four years and have recently applied to rent an exclusive apartment. When Jeremy fails to propose to Anna, as she had expected him to do, she decides to follow him to a medical conference in Dublin to propose to him, in accordance with an old Irish tradition told to her by her father Jack, allowing women to propose marriage on February 29th in a leap year. Anna’s flight from Boston is diverted due to bad weather and lands in Cardiff. She hires a boat to take her across the water to Dublin, but the boat is blown off-course in the stormy seas and lands in Dingle, where she meets cynical and hostile pub owner Declan. In desperate need of money, he agrees to drive her to Dublin, but they are befallen by a series of increasingly farcical mishaps.

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‘Leap Year’ is a formulaic rom-com that offers nothing new to the genre and fails in almost everything it sets out to do. We know exactly how the story is going to unfold right from the very start, which is not in itself a problem, but there is no invention here. We might forgive the fact that Cardiff is irritatingly referred to repeatedly as “Cardiff, Wales”, just in case we are not clear about the fact that it is not in Ireland. We might even forgive the complete absence of any attention to geography and overlook the ludicrous suggestion that a boat travelling across the St George’s Channel from Cardiff towards Dublin would land in Dingle. However, it is harder to ignore the horribly stereotypical and patronising depiction of a whimsical Ireland. The Irish accent employed by the English actor Matthew Goode is also all too predictably bad.

Goode has been highly critical of the film, suggesting that it might be a contender for the worst film of 2010. It probably isn’t that bad, but equally there is little to commend it and not even a typically spirited and accomplished performance by Amy Adams can rescue it, although her presence undoubtedly makes it more watchable.

‘Leap Year’ has a 21% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 112 reviews. Its box office gross to date is a little under $26.5 million, against a production budget of $19 million.

Review posted 7 March 2010


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Hot Fuzz

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Rating 2¼


Directed Edgar Wright

Written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright

Starring Simon Pegg (Sgt Nicholas Angel), Nick Frost (PC Danny Butterman), Jim Broadbent (Inspector Frank Butterman), Timothy Dalton (Simon Skinner), Edward Woodward (Tom Weaver), Bill Bailey (Sgt Turner), Paddy Considine (DS Andy Wainwright), Rafe Spall (DC Andy Cartwright), Kevin Eldon (Sgt Tony Fisher), Karl Johnson (PC Bob Walker), Olivia Colman (PC Doris Thatcher), Billie Whitelaw (Joyce Cooper), Eric Mason (Bernard Cooper), Stuart Wilson (Dr Robin Hatcher), Paul Freeman (Rev Philip Shooter), Anne Reid (Leslie Tiller), Alice Lowe (Tina), Bill Nighy (Chief Inspector), Martin Freeman (Sergeant) and uncredited appearances by Steve Coogan and Cate Blanchett


PC Nicholas Angel is the textbook police officer, so much so that he puts his colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Service to shame, so they rid themselves of him with a promotion to Sergeant and a transfer to Sandford, a crime-free village in Gloucestershire. Angel is greeted with suspicion by his new colleagues and with derision when he suggests that a series of seemingly accidental deaths were, in fact, murders, but he finds a friend and ally in the PC Danny Butterman, the son of the local police inspector.

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‘Hot Fuzz’ was the follow-up to the much-loved zombie homage ‘Shaun of the Dead’, and like that film was directed by Edgar Wright from a screenplay co-written with Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg alongside Nick Frost and a wealth of British acting talent. Wright, Pegg and Frost had previously worked together on the BBC television series ‘Spaced’ (which was co-written by Pegg and the actress Jessica Hynes, nee Stevenson) and are now working on a sci-fi film called ‘The World’s End’.

For the first hour of ‘Hot Fuzz’, which apparently has its roots in ‘Dead Right’, an amateur film made by Edgar Wright in 1993, it plays like a kind of mixture of ‘Midsomer Murders’, ‘The League of Gentlemen’ and ‘The Wicker Man’. The second hour is an over-cooked homage / parody of action films like ‘Bad Boys II’ and ‘Point Break’, both of which are name-checked extensively.

‘Hot Fuzz’ is very typical of Simon Pegg’s style of comedy and homage to a variety of niche genres. It contains many clever touches and some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, but somehow it just isn’t quite as funny as it should be and I did start to get very bored during the interminable action sequences in the second half. More noticeable yet, it isn’t as warm-hearted as the wonderful ‘Shaun of the Dead’, which admittedly was a very hard act to follow.

I have to say that I found the under-appreciated mid-1990s Rowan Atkinson television sitcom ‘The Thin Blue Line’ funnier, but that is not to say that ‘Hot Fuzz’ is not worth watching.

The film had a production budget of £8 million (a little under $16 million) and grossed over $80.5 million at the box office worldwide. It has a very impressive 90% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 189 reviews.

Review posted 3 February 2010


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Chopping Mall

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Rating 2


Directed by Jim Wynorski

Written by Jim Wynorski and Steve Mitchell

Starring Kelli Maroney (Alison Parks), Tony O’Dell (Ferdy Meisel), Russell Todd (Rick Stanton), Karrie Emerson (Linda Stanton), Barbara Crampton (Suzie Lynn), Nick Segal (Greg Williams), John Terlesky (Mike Brennan), Suzee Slater (Leslie Todd), Dick Miller (Walter Paisley), Paul Bartel (Paul Bland) and Mary Woronov (Mary Bland)


Four young couples plan a wild party in the Park Plaza Mall after it has shut for the night, but they are menaced by three deadly security robots that have gone haywire following an electrical storm.

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‘Chopping Mall’ is a 1986 horror film. It was produced by Julie Corman, the wife of the celebrated low-budget filmmaker Roger Corman, the film’s executive producer, and was originally released under the title ‘Killbots’. Basically, it’s a kind of horror version of ‘Short Circuit’, although it pre-dates that film by a couple of months.

There isn’t much to say about the film. It’s cheap and cheerful and doesn’t outstay its welcome. The script is threadbare and the robots are not threatening looking in the slightest, but Kelli Maroney (who also starred in the cult favourite ‘Night of the Comet’) runs around the deserted Mall with commendable enthusiasm.

It’s silly and not remotely scary, but the exploding head is effective and the film is quite fun to watch once. I cannot imagine needing to watch it a second time.

Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov have cameos playing their characters from Bartel’s cult 1982 film ‘Eating Raoul’. Perhaps these cameos are amusing if you are familiar with the earlier film, which I am not.

Review posted 21 January 2010

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Night Of The Comet

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Rating 2½


Written and directed by Thom Eberhardt

Starring Catherine Mary Stewart (Regina Belmont), Keli Maroney (Samantha Belmont), Robert Beltran (Hector Gomez), Mary Woronov (Dr Audrey White), Geoffrey Lewis (Dr Carter), John Achorn (Dr Oscar Silverman), Peter Fox (Dr Wilson), Michael Bowen (Larry Dupree), Ivan E Roth (Willy), Sharon Farrell (Doris), Janice Kawaye (Sarah) and Chance Boyer (Brian)


The world is preparing for the spectacular display that will light up the night sky when a comet passes overhead. The comet had last crossed paths with the Earth at the time of the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years earlier. Regina, who works at a local cinema, elects instead to spend the night with Larry, the projectionist. Her sister Samantha, a cheerleader, sneaks out of a party at home after an argument with her stepmother. The next morning Regina and Samantha discover that a red smog hangs heavy in the air, nearly everyone seems to have been reduced to a red dust, and they are harassed by flesh-eating zombies. They encounter another survivor, Hector, at a local radio station. He is on his way to search for any surviving members of his family. In the meantime, Regina and Samantha have come to the attentions of a group of scientists who had predicted the effects of the comet and hidden in a secret underground facility.

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‘Night of the Comet’ is a low-budget 1984 film that pays homage to other low-budget genre movies. The classic 1953 film ‘It Came From Outer Space’ is mentioned early on, but a more obvious reference point would be ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and, I thought, ‘The Day of the Triffids’, as well as ‘The World, the Flesh and the Devil’, a 1959 Harry Belafonte film in which he is trapped by an underground cave in and when he escapes he discovers that the world is deserted and he appears to be the only person left alive.

The film’s writer and director Thom Eberhardt has claimed that the production budget was just $700,000, although $3 million has been quoted as a more likely figure. The film grossed a little under $14.5 million at the domestic box office. It has an 83% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 18 reviews and has an established cult status, even being described as a masterpiece of its genre, although one dissenting reviewer was extremely critical of the film and particularly scathing about absurdities in the plot, which is perhaps missing the point when the film so obviously has its tongue in its cheek.

Its protagonists, the heroes (or, I should say, heroines) of the film, immediately make it stand out, although I am not quite sure why in the opening scenes when Regina and Larry have sex in the projection booth she apparently does so on the promise of $15, which he doesn’t pay. We are supposed to glean that she is tough and independent, capable of looking after herself, but this doesn’t seem to serve any purpose whatsoever, other than being slightly demeaning. Much is made of the film’s humour. It is of a type and I didn’t find it particularly funny. The line “Daddy would have gotten us Uzis” spoken by Samantha when the mechanism on the machine gun she is firing jams has been quoted as an example of the witty dialogue.

The film is undoubtedly clever, subverting the genre and paying homage to it at the same time. I did find it rather stilted in general and some of the acting leaves a lot to desired, but I found myself, if not actually liking it more, than certainly disliking it less as it went on. In the end, it’s a film that appeals to a certain audience, has a website devoted to it and even an online discussion board. I didn’t find it as fun or engaging as I had hoped, but that is probably fairly meaningless. It would be interesting to know what influence if any the film had on Joss Whedon.

Thom Eberhardt went on to direct the Sherlock Holmes spoof ‘Without a Clue’, starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. Robert Beltran played Commander Chakotay in 171 episodes of the television series ‘Star Trek: Voyager’. Kelli Maroney’s other films include ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ and ‘Chopping Mall’. Geoffrey Lewis, the father of Juliette Lewis, is a veteran of 200 or more films of varying quality.

Review posted 19 January 2010


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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

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Rating 2½


Directed by Gore Verbinski

Written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, based on characters created by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpatt

Starring Johnny Depp (Captain Jack Sparrow), Orlando Bloom (Will Turner), Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Swann), Bill Nighy (Davy Jones), Jack Davenport (James Norrington), Jonathan Pryce (Weatherby Swann), Tom Hollander (Cutler Beckett), Stellan Skarsgård (Bootstrap Bill Turner), Lee Areberg (Pintel), Mackenzie Crook (Ragetti), Kevin McNally (Joshamee Gibbs) and Naomie Harris (Tia Dalma)

Lord Cutler Beckett arrests Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann in Port Royal, Jamaica, threatening execution to force Turner to hunt for the Pirate Captain Jack Sparrow and relieve him of his magic compass. The devious Sparrow and the crew of his ship the Black Pearl have been captured by cannibals on a tropical island. Following their escape they are pursued by Captain Davy Jones and the ghost ship the Flying Dutchman, as well as the legendary sea monster the Kraken.

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‘Dead Man’s Chest’ is the second film in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise, produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Gore Verbinski, whose previous films include ‘The Ring’, and was released in 2006. Its box office gross was a mind-boggling $1,066,179,725, against a production budget of $225 million, making it the fourth highest grossing film of all time (not taking into account inflation). It received mixed reviews and has a 53% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 212 reviews.

I enjoyed the first film ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’, but I also found myself somewhat disappointed by it. I had the same reaction to ‘Dead Man’s Curse’. It’s expertly made, a master class of modern day effects-soaked action-adventure blockbusters, but it’s so bombastic and arrogant of its own hugeness that it lacks heart.

Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are unremittingly bland and charisma-free leads, but perhaps they need to be as an antidote to all the madcap mayhem being unleashed around them, much like Allan Jones (the father of the singer Jack Jones), who found himself playing the bland romantic lead in the anarchic Marx Brothers films ‘A Night at the Opera’ and ‘A Day at the Races’. Johnny Depp’s performance as Captain Jack Sparrow is little more than an impersonation of Keith Richards (who turns up in the third film, playing Captain Jack’s father), but is no less enjoyable for that and has played a big part in the success of the franchise.

At 150 minutes it is probably a little too long and it does become a bogged down and convoluted at times, but there is also a lot of humour and it is fun to watch. While I am often not especially impressed by CGI effects, the special effects here are superb. I particularly liked the Kraken.

‘Dead Man’s Chest’ was followed by ‘At World’s End’. A fourth instalment ‘On Stranger Tides’ has been announced, with Johnny Depp returning as Captain Jack Sparrow, although both Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley (who, in 2008, was the second highest paid actress in Hollywood) have both stated that they do not intend to reprise their roles.

Review posted 8 January 2010


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Portrait of Jennie

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Rating *5*


Directed by William Dieterle

Written by Paul Osborn , Peter Berneis, Ben Hecht (uncredited) and David O Selznick (uncredited) – adaptation by Leonardro Bercovici from the novel by Robert Nathan

Starring Joseph Cotton (Eben Adams), Jennifer Jones (Jennie Appleton), Ethel Barrymore (Miss Spinney), Cecil Kellaway (Matthews), Lillian Gih (Mother Mary of Mercy), David Wayne (Gus O’Toole), Albert Sharpe (Moore), Florence Bates (Mrs Jekes), Henry Hull (Eke) and Clem Bevans (Captain Cobb)


Eben Adams is an unsuccessful and starving artist in New York City who manages to sell a sketch to art dealer Miss Spinney for $12, not because she is particularly impressed by his work, but because she sees a spark of something in him. Soon afterwards, he encounters Jennie, a rather strange but engaging girl, in Central Park and then soon after secures a commission to paint a mural depicting the Irish rebel Michael Collins in a local bar. He has more encounters with Jennie and becomes increasingly obsessed with painting her portrait, but on each occasion she is noticeably older than the last. As he falls more and more in love with her he realises that he is a witness to fragments of events from the past.

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During the long production of ‘Portrait of Jennie’ Jennifer Jones, who had been married to Robert Walker, the troubled actor whose memorable final performance was in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 film ‘Strangers on a Train’, had a long relationship with producer David O Selznick, the legendary film producer responsible for ‘Gone With the Wind’ amongst many others. They married in 1949. Selznick was perpetually unhappy with results he saw during the production, commissioned numerous rewrites, some of which he undertook himself, and tinkered with the film for over a year before it finally received its theatrical release on Christmas Day 1948. It was not a success, but it is now considered to be a classic film of its time.

‘Portrait of Jennie’ is based on a 1940 novel by Robert Nathan, who also wrote ‘The Bishop’s Wife’. The film has an eerie dreamlike quality that perfectly suits the tale of a doomed young woman who calls across time to an artist who had once painted the scene of her death. Even the rather blatant republican propaganda of the mural of Michael Collins, the Commander-in-Chief of the Irish National Army who was killed during the Irish Civil War in 1922, has an certain value. Jennifer Jones and the always reliable Joseph Cotton (a long-time collaborator of Orson Welles and the star of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film ‘Shadow of a Doubt’) give good performances and there is excellent support from Cecil Kellaway and, in particular, Ethel Barrymore, the grand-aunt of Drew Barrymore and a formidable presence in American theatre.

The German director William Dieterle was a steady hand who had previously directed ‘The Story of Louis Pasteur’ and ‘The Life of Emile Zola’, both starring the now largely forgotten Paul Muni, who was once considered to be one of America’s greatest actors, winning one Oscar for Best Actor and receiving five other Academy Award nominations. He also directed ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ starring Charles Laughton.

Jennifer Jones, who did at the age of 90 on 19 December 2009, having survived a suicide attempt in 1967 that left her in a coma, two years after the death of her husband David O Selznick, won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1943 for her role in ‘The Song of Bernadette’. She was nominated on three subsequent occasions; for ‘Love Letters’ in 1945, ‘Duel in the Sun’ in 1946, in which she also co-starred opposite Joseph Cotton, and ‘Love is a Many-Splendored Thing’ in 1955. She received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for ‘Since You Want Away’ in 1944. ‘Duel in the Sun’, a controversial film at the time of its release in 1946, also featured Lillian Gish, who received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role. Gish, who plays Mother Mary of Mercy in ‘Portrait of Jennie’, had been a major film star during the silent era. When, in 1999, the American Film Institute announced a list of the 50 top stars of American cinema, 25 male and 25 female, Gish was included at No.17 in the list of “female legends”.

‘Portrait of Jennie is a film of ethereal beauty and fully deserves its reputation.

Review posted 2 January 2010


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