Volume 39, Number 05
Movies
Movie News
By Bill Hersey
Gaga Communications has been super busy with several interesting promos. First they did an excellent job of marketing the documentary film Earth. Japan's top international star Ken Watanabe did the narration for the fi lm and he has fans everywhere. For the press conference they arranged to have a number of celebrity guests whose names or parts of their names, contained the names of animals, or other earth-related things. Good idea!!
On February 20 Gaga held a press conference for the film Golden Compass. I'll be talking about that later but for now I'll just say that Nicole Kidman looked gorgeous.
Still on Gaga, the film distribution company's Tom Yoda has taken over as director of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), which is scheduled for October of this year. Tom's an international leader in the film business and I'm sure we'll see some interesting changes at TIFF this year.
In addition to a good line-up of international productions, Warner Brothers has a full schedule of local productions they'll be opening throughout this year. These include the suspense film Sweet Rain which was shot on location in Japan late last year. Popular young Japanese-Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, who stars in the film, flew in recently to join the Japanese cast for a promotional campaign. Sweet Rain opens March 22.
I really enjoyed celebrating American- Korean actor Aaron-Yoo's birthday with him and friends when he was here promoting the film American Pastime for Warner Brothers. Aaron was also one of the stars of the film Disturbia.
Movie Reviews - Control / The Golden Compass / Vantage Point
by William Casper
Control
Control is the tragic story of Ian Curtis, lead singer of English post-punk band Joy Division, who committed suicide at the age of 23 in May 1980. Based on the book Touching From the Distance by Deborah Curtis, Ian's wife, and directed by photographer Anton Corbijn, the film covers the last years of the singer's short life as he evolved from a Maccesfield Grammar schoolboy to one of rock's most original and enigmatic front men. Control is beautifully shot in black and white, every perfect frame a reminder a photographer is directing. Like Joy Division's music, it contains moments of beauty, insight, and anguish but overall the tone is somber and sad.
Curtis married Debbie at 17 and lived the dual lifestyles of civil service clerk, husband and father by day; band member by night. These contradictions were further emphasized when he met Belgium journalist Annik Honore and began an affair that continued until his death. He also suffered from epilepsy and took a cocktail of prescription drugs in an effort to control his fits. Considering the source material, the film is surprisingly non-judgmental and sympathetic to the doomed singer.
The performances are mostly excellent and the era is rendered well on a limited budget. Special mentions to Sam Riley as Curtis and Samantha Morton as Debbie. Riley captures Curtis's fragile blend of vulnerability, sensitivity, and selfish ambition to an amazing degree. Watching the live sequences, it is easy to forget you are watching an actor and not archive footage. Morton is also excellent in a difficult role, bringing out the humanity in Debbie when it would have been easy to portray her as insensitive to Curtis's needs. Be warned—there are no happy endings here.
The Golden Compass
Any children's books dealing with Satan, loss of sexual innocence and the death of God are bound to encounter some controversy. Phillip Pullman's astounding trilogy, His Dark Materials, is loved by a generation of young readers and hated by the kind of Christian who enjoys a book bonfire. Filming these books was never going to please everyone. The Golden Compass (TGC), written and directed by Chris Weitzis and based on Northern Lights, the first book of the trilogy. Devotees are angry that the religious elements have been toned down. For some, even toned down, the film is still too disrespectful.
Viewed neutrally, TGC is an enjoyable film without ever becoming the wholly convincing experience that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films are. Like that other Christian fantasy epic Narnia, the imaginary world presented is full of invention and charm, but never quite seems a world that could naturally evolve and sustain itself. Set in a parallel world, looking very like 1930s England, the plot concerns Lyra, an orphan girl living with her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). This world is controlled by a sinister government, the Magisterium, determined to stamp out free will (is that a bell ringing?).
Lyra's uncle leaves on a journey and she is taken-up by the menacing Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman). Armed with the last remaining golden compass, a truth-telling device, Lyra slips away from Mrs. Coulter in search of a missing friend. Her quest makes up the main action of the film.
The film, mostly computer-generated images, looks beautiful and contains some wonderful action sequences. A battle between two polar bears (voiced wonderfully by Ians McKellan and McShane) is superbly done and genuinely exciting. The cast is packed with great veteran British actors. It's a real pleasure seeing Tom Courtney and Derek Jacobi in a big budget film and scene-stealer extraordinaire, Sam Eliot, does his thing well as a cowboy pilot.
Dakota Blue Richards plays Lyra, a tougher, leaner version of Shirley Temple and is not the typical cutesy child lead. She is abrasive, willful, and very likable. She holds her own against a vastly experienced cast and a whole host of computer trickery.
The decision to complete the trilogy on the big screen has not yet been made and although the film stands alone well, it would be a great pity not to see how Lyra's adventure plays out.
Vantage Point
Vantage Point, directed by Pete Travis, tells the story of an assassination attempt on a US President from the viewpoint of various people involved. Trailers for the film promise ‘Eight strangers, eight points of view, one truth' but in fact we're only shown five—and they're not all strangers.
For the first hour we see the same sequence, the assassination, five times.
This is surprisingly effective, each sequence reveals a little more and anticipation of the ‘truth' grows. For some reason the filmmakers abandon this method of storytelling for a conventional last 30 minutes of car chases and shootouts. The jarring change of style detracts from the overall film. What was developing nicely as a Hitchcockian political thriller peters out predictably, totally wasting the invention of the first hour. A solid cast including Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver, and William Hurt do their best, but the overall feel is of an opportunity missed.
On DVD
Miss Potter—Renee Zellweger continues to perfect her English accent as Beatrix Potter. With Ewan McGregor (who else?!) and Emily Watson. Surprisingly good.
The Good German—Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s love-in continues. This time in an experimental homage to film noir. Worth a look.
La Mome—Marion Cotillard’s Oscar-winning performance as Edith Piaf is reason enough to watch this biopic.
No Reservations—Smacks of Baby Boom as Catherine Zeta Jones workaholic New York chef inherits a niece. Based on the German film Mostly Martha. Romantic-comedy cliché but has its moments.
Inland Empire—David Lynch continues his quest to make the most tedious motion picture of all time. He’s getting closer. To be fair, some love it. With Laura Dern and Jeremy Irons.