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Rating 2
Directed by Nick Hurran
Written by Melissa Carter and Elisa Bell, from a story by Melissa Carter
Starring Brittany Murphy (Stacy), Holly Hunter (Barb), Kathy Bates (Kippie Kann), Ron Livingston (Derek), Kevin Sussman (Ira), Julianne Nicholson (Joyce), Josie Maran (Lulu Fritz), Rashida Jones (Dr Rachel Keyes), Stephen Tobolowsky (Carl), Dave Annable (Bean), Sharon Lawrence (Mom) and Carly Simon (herself)
Stacy gets a job as an associate producer on a daytime reality TV show. She confides in her colleague Barb that her boyfriend Derek has commitment issues and becomes uncomfortable and uncommunicative when she tries to talk about his past relationships. Barb persuades her to look at Derek’s Palm smart-phone, which he has accidentally left behind when going away on a business trip, and then to interview his past girlfriends, purportedly as research for a television programme, but Stacy begins to learn things she doesn’t want to know.
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I did debate with myself whether or not I wanted to review this. On the evening after watching it I went to my computer to begin to write a review and discovered the breaking news reports about the sudden unexpected death of Brittany Murphy at the age of 32. It was a very sad coincidence.
I am not overly familiar with Murphy’s films. I have seen a few, but not the three films that are probably her most famous outings – ‘Clueless’, ‘Girl Interrupted’ and ‘8 Mile’. In the films I have seen I thought there was a spark about her, something that made her stand out, although perhaps not in ‘Deadline’, the 2009 psychological horror film in which she was dreadful. She is much better in ‘Little Black Book’, a rom-com from 2004; even if it is a somewhat manic performance and the film itself has an unpleasantly mean streak and sends out a decidedly odd message, portraying its lead character as someone almost paranoid in her insecurities about her boyfriend, as though she were suffering from some form of neurosis.
The film does have some funny moments along the way, but Stacy’s actions are unattractively manipulative and, in an odd twist, she is easily manipulated by those around her. It quickly becomes obvious that Barb is anything but her friend and is using her, although the film doesn’t seem to expect us to realise this until the payoff. As objectionable as the film does become, nothing prepared me for the abjectly awful final scene that had me reaching for the sick bag.
‘Little Black Book’ is a rather peculiar film. It has a good cast and I cannot pretend not to have enjoyed some of it, up to a point. It has a 22% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 107 reviews and grossed $22 million at the box office against a production budget of $35 million.
Review posted 22 December 2009
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Rating ½
Written and directed by Sean McConville
Starring Brittany Murphy (Alice Evans), Thora Birch (Lucy Woods), Marc Blucas (David Woods), Tammy Blanchard (Rebecca) and Claudia Troll (David’s Mother)
While she recovers from a traumatic psychological breakdown, Alice Evans takes up residence alone in an old isolated house to concentrate on writing a screenplay to meet a tight deadline. When strange things start to happen and she hears noises at night she investigates and finds a box full of MiniDV tapes, a filmed record of the daily lives of Lucy and David Woods, previous occupants of the house. As she watches the tapes she learns of the terrible events that took place there.
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It is difficult to know what to say about ‘Deadline’, except to comment that I can still not quite believe how bad it was. This is truly dreadful film that abjectly fails in everything it sets out to do. I know very little about Brittany Murphy, but nothing in previous films I have seen (for example, ‘The Prophecy II’ and ‘Cherry Falls’, neither of which is especially good) prepared me for the awfulness of her performance here. I remain undecided if it was a terrible piece of acting or if she is simply the victim of the mindboggling direction by the film’s writer Sean McConville. Thora Birch and Marc Blucas, two competent and likeable performers, fare marginally better, but only because they have far less screen time.
Maybe I am being unfairly critical of the film, but I came away from watching it thinking it was rotten.
Review posted 21 November 2009
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Rating 3
Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller
“Special Guest Director” Quentin Tarantino
Written by Frank Miller
Starring Bruce Willis (John Hartigan), Mickey Rourke (Marv), Clive Owen (Dwight McCarthy), Jessica Alba (Nancy Callahan), Jaime King (Goldie / Wendy), Brittany Murphy (Shellie), Rosario Dawson (Gail), Nick Stahl (Yellow Bastard), Elijah Wood (Kevin), Rutger Hauer (Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark), Powers Boothe (Senator Roark), Benicio del Torro (Jack ‘Jackie Boy’ Rafferty), Alexis Bledel (Becky), Devon Aoki (Miho), Michael Madsen (Bob), Makenzie Vega (Nancy Callahan, as a child) and Josh Hartnett (The Salesman)
In Basin City John Hartigan, an aging police detective with a heart condition, tries to rescue a young girl from a notorious and sadistic serial killer, Marv goes after the killers of a prostitute, having been framed for her murder and Dwight McCarthy gets involved in gang warfare between the prostitutes in Old Town and a gang of mercenaries after the killing of a “hero” police officer.
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‘Sin City’ is a 2005 film based on a noir graphic novel series written and drawn by Frank Miller, specifically ‘The Customer Is Always Right’, ‘The Hard Goodbye’, ‘The Big Fat Kill’ and ‘That Yellow Bastard’. It also draws on ‘A Dame to Kill For’, which Miller has indicated will be the basis of a planned sequel. Miller’s other work includes ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Returns’ and ‘300’, which was adapted into a film in 2007 and grossed in excess of $456 million at the box office. I have next to no interest in comic books (or graphic novels) and had very little knowledge of Frank Miller’s work prior to the film’s release.
The film was made using a digital backlot. The actors worked in front of a green screen and artificial computer-generated backgrounds were inserted afterwards. This is not an uncommon technique and it was not the first time it had been used on this scale – another obvious example is ‘Sky Captain and the People of Tomorrow’, released the previous year. The film’s use of black and white cinematography with isolated splashes of colour has been much commented on, but again it is not new. ‘Pleasantville’ in 1998 used a similar trick and, in fact, the influence of the classic 1946 Powell and Pressberger film ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ might be mentioned. The film does have a striking stylistic quality, intended, I assume, to replicate the original comics, although I found that the novelty wore off very quickly.
The proliferation of very graphic and highly stylised violence contained in the film has been much discussed. While it might be tempting to be momentarily in favour of a sadistic paedophile serial rapist and killer having his genitals ripped off, It isn’t shocking or provocative or thought-provoking, compelling or exciting; it’s just incredibly bland and boring. The film is around two hours long and seemed a lot longer to me because I quickly lost interest in the stylised presentation and mind-numbingly boring violence.
The film seems to be making a statement about the treatment of women within society – all the female characters are femme fatales who are invariably brutalised in some shape or form. However, I could not help but think it took too much delight in this depiction and was doing nothing more than pandering to and perpetuating the most reprehensible of fanboy fantasies. Just like the depiction of violence, it seemed to me that the filmmakers enjoyed the idea of women being brutalised just a little too much, although I am undoubtedly biased because of my generally disinterested reaction to the film and probably a long way off the mark.
‘The Faculty’, the 1998 Robert Rodriguez horror film inspired by ‘The Puppet Masters’ and ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, is a favourite film of mine, but I have not particularly liked any of the other films of his I have seen (I haven’t seen the ‘Spy Kids’ films or ‘Planet Terror’). I don’t really like Quentin Tarantino, who Rodriguez has frequently collaborated with and who directs a scene from the ‘The Big Fat Kill’ section here – admittedly, one of the scenes that most stood out for me.
‘Sin City’ is undoubtedly attention-grabbing, up to a point, and I imagine very successful in what it sets out to do. I didn’t particularly enjoy it and although it is clearly quite clever and, perhaps, adventurous, I did not find it especially appealing, despite having a interesting cast and one or two notable performances. It has a 77% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 230 reviews and grossed a little under $159 million at the box office against a production budget of $40 million.
Review posted 13 September 2009
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Rating 1½
Directed by Greg Spence
Written by Greg Spence and Matthew Greenberg, based on characters created by Gregory Widen
Starring Christopher Walken, Jennifer Beals, Russell Wong, Brittany Murphy, Glenn Danzig, William Prael, Steve Hytner, Bruce Abbott, Danny Strong and Eric Roberts
Gabriel (Christopher Walken) is expelled from Hell by Lucifer and goes in search of Valerie Rosales (Jennifer Beals), who carries the Nephilim, intent on killing the unborn child.
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‘The Prophecy II’ was released direct to video in January 1998, two years and four month after the original film, which had built up a word-of-mouth cult following after a middling showing at the box office. Everything that made that first film so compelling and enjoyable, be it the interesting premise or the agreeably over-the-top performances, is absent here. This is just a really bad film. I have given it an extra half-point to acknowledge a spirited performance by Brittany Murphy.
Christopher Walken returns from the first outing, although watching the result, it is hard to know what possessed him. The only other actor to return is Steve Hytner, in what amounts to little more than a cameo.
Gregory Widen, who wrote and directed the first film, is an executive producer this time around. He gets a credit as the creator of the original characters, although it is tempting to suggest that he can hardly claim credit for the likes of Lucifer and the Archangel Gabriel.
Review posted 16 March 2009
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Rating 2½
Directed by Geoffrey Wright
Written by Ken Selden
Starring Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, Michael Biehn, Candy Clark, Gabriel Mann, Jesse Watrouse (Rod Harper), Joe Inscoe and Amanda Anka
A serial killer is targeting students at a high school in Cherry Falls. When the local sheriff, Brent Marken (Michael Biehn), begins to suspect the common denominator is that the victims are all virgins, the students determine to lose their virginity to become immune to the activities of the killer. In the meantime, the sheriff’s daughter, Jody (Brittany Murphy), discovers a terrible secret that has been hidden for the past 27 years.
‘Cherry Falls’ is a slasher movie that inverts one of the traditions of the genre; that the promiscuous teenagers will always fall prey to the killer. Having introduced this twist, it needed to do much more with it than happens here. Half-hearted lip service is paid to attitudes towards sex, but nowhere near enough to make much of an impact. Some degree of commentary about sex education in the American school system might have been introduced into the storyline, but remains resolutely absent, despite reference to the general level of ignorance, especially amongst the boys. In the end, it’s a missed opportunity that boils down to nothing more than teenagers with rampaging hormones obsessing about sex.
The film is reasonably well done, although it doesn’t count amongst the very best examples of the genre. It has a decent cast – and certainly benefits from the presence of the excellent Jay Mohr. The director, Geoffrey Wright, had previously made the cult Australian film ‘Romper Stomper’, an early breakthrough role for Russell Crowe.
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Stacy gets a job as an associate producer on a daytime reality TV show. She confides in her colleague Barb that her boyfriend Derek has commitment issues and becomes uncomfortable and uncommunicative when she tries to talk about his past relationships. Barb persuades her to look at Derek’s Palm smart-phone, which he has accidentally left behind when going away on a business trip, and then to interview his past girlfriends, purportedly as research for a television programme, but Stacy begins to learn things she doesn’t want to know.
I did debate with myself whether or not I wanted to review this. On the evening after watching it I went to my computer to begin to write a review and discovered the breaking news reports about the sudden unexpected death of Brittany Murphy at the age of 32. It was a very sad coincidence.
The film does have some funny moments along the way, but Stacy’s actions are unattractively manipulative and, in an odd twist, she is easily manipulated by those around her. It quickly becomes obvious that Barb is anything but her friend and is using her, although the film doesn’t seem to expect us to realise this until the payoff. As objectionable as the film does become, nothing prepared me for the abjectly awful final scene that had me reaching for the sick bag.
