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dannimac
Reviews
Screen One: A Foreign Field (1993)
A beautiful, gentle story of terrible times
Although made by the BBC, frustratingly this hasn't been released on DVD in the UK and strangely never repeated on the BBC. A story of ordinary veterans returning to the scene of extraordinary events that had a lasting effect on their lives. All seven leads play their roles fantastically well but undoubtedly the star is Alec Guinness with a six word performance that mesmerises. It is very British in it's restraint and of course excels at pathos. I'm not a crier but I find it hard not to let a tear or six escape while watching this. Never was a jam jar put to better use. Now for god's sake, BBC, release it on DVD in the UK!
Planet of the Apes (2001)
The most visually stunning god awful piece of tripe you will ever encounter
Directed by Tim Burton, this has all the things that you would normally associate with him - fabulous costumes, gothic scenery etc etc. These are visually stunning and serve as an excellent background to the movie. What's missing is a good storyline, good dialogue or (apart from a few notable exceptions which I will come to later) decent actors. It takes the plot of the original film and "updates" it (although why it needed updating, I don't know).
Why do I think it is so awful - let's start with the dialogue. From the moment Mark Wahlberg utters the line "I'm going to get my monkey" the script is laughable.
Now on to the storyline - well as I said, did it need updating? Take the original, add in some human talking (although it was mostly Wahlberg) and a truly cringe making ending and you have the disaster that was this movie.
The acting - I've watched a couple of Wahlberg movies now and I really don't rate him. He seems to think a perma frown relays a pensive side and that if he stomps, he will appear powerful. As a main player, he doesn't convince. Tim Roth - love him but overdone. Helena - don't get me started - ape sensitivity, I don't think so! Michael Clarke Duncan - hang your head in shame. And Estella Warren - god love her, she didn't have a chance. She gets so few lines and is blatantly there as eye candy alone.
The human characters who deliver the lines don't even have the decency to look embarrassed. The one exception is Kris Kristofferson who I can pass off without comment, mainly because he wisely keeps his mouth shut for most of the time. The ape actors are well hidden and we won't know if they were embarrassed or not - and they should be. I really respect Tim Roth as an actor but this was ape ham that I was watching - overdone evil, a flat performance. The only decent ape performances that I saw were by Paul Giamatti as the slave trader and the brilliant minute or so that Charlton Heston was on the screen.
If you choose to watch this movie, remember you will never get the time it took to watch it back.
You've Got Mail (1998)
A love letter to New York
This is a simple rom-com for those of us who don't want a heavy duty thinking session. Hanks and Ryan are great in their respective roles and are supported by a wonderful cast. The plot is fairly simple and is based on the plot of The Shop Around the Corner where two "enemies" don't realise that they are each others pen pals (in the original by mail, in this one by email) and fall in love with their secret pen pal only to find out later that their true love has been right under their nose. A little cheesy maybe but like I said, this isn't heavy duty. Apart from the central love story, there are two other love stories going on here and good on the Ephron sisters for bringing them up. The first one is a love of the printed word. Whether your choice would be Fox Books or The Shop Around the Corner, both are bringing a love of books to the target audience. And even though the Frank Navasky character is not the most endearing, he loves the words that he writes. But the most important love story of all is the love that Nora Ephron has for New York, especially the community of the Upper West Side. The UWS is truly the star of the movie and deservedly so. Watch this film if you have a bit of sparkle and not too much cynicism about yourself and tune out the world for a couple of hours.