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Reviews
Dracula (1979)
Worthy but Flawed
A strange but worthy adaptation which I saw AFTER all the others. Its got a larger scale than even Coppola's version, but not a larger scope, although it also shares the more blatant allusions to sex that the 1992 film presented. It has less blood and violence than the Hammer versions, but what violence there is is much more extreme (throats being de-fleshed, dead babies etc). It is as Gothic as Tod Browning's film but, unfortunately, is almost as monochrome as well. The desaturated grey look doesn't really work. It starts off OK, making you feel uneasy and really placing you in the period, but soon gets annoying and feels pretty unnecessary. The only scene where colour flourishes (the blood baptism/love making scene) is experimental and interestingly done, but probably goes on too long and some may find it a touch dated these days. The biggest drawback is the silliness in the film. Donald Pleasance's attempts to be 'funny' feel out of place, and Olivier seems tired and unsure as Van Helsing, rather than eccentric, warm and confident (as he is in the book). His final contribution to Dracula's demise is pure comedy and ruins the final act. The best scene occurs in an old mineshaft where van Helsing must slay/liberate his daughter. The make-up and frights are extremely effective here. The tacked on carriage chase later on, however, is misjudged (despite being faithful to the book) and John Williams' score is too vibrant and swashbuckley in nature here. It feels more like Indiana Jones or Star Wars, than Gothic horror. Overall, the music is too full, and omnipotent. If it took a back seat more often the film would almost certainly be more atmospheric as some of the images are powerful enough on their own. Highly flawed then, although Langella is magnificent, so for that fact alone it deserves to be up there with Nosferatu, the Browning version, the best of Hammer, and Coppola's too (which for my money is far and away the best).
Dirty Pretty Things (2002)
Unbelievably Overrated
I guess it deserves about a 60% rating - just - but after the hype it generated, I was left very, very disappointed. It's an incredibly conventional 'cutting edge' movie that - after winning a BAFTA or 2 - had the idiotic UK film establishment proclaiming it a 'masterpiece'. I can only think of 2 other Frears films that I actually like and this is just as undistinguished as most of them: It starts as a gritty social 'documentary', segues into love story, turns into an absurd revenge comedy, and then final turns into a love story again. The moral of it all: Immigrants are either jolly wise fellas, idiots, or filthy degenerates (the only exception being the male lead). The performances are actually quite good as this is Tatou's first English-language picture, and Ejiofor does well considering he is required to virtually carry the whole picture on his own 2 shoulders, but the bit parts (Okoneda's tart-with-a-heart, the jolly, semi-impotent Russian doorman, the disgusting Asian sweatshop manager, the comic-book immigration cops, and the slimy exploitative boss who gets his comeuppance through a (and isn't this a jolly good laugh - not) forced kidney removal) are ridiculous for a film that wants to be taken totally seriously. There are many stories about immigrants, and the seedier side of London, that deserve to be told - but this one takes all of it's considerable potential and just revels in totally cocking it up! The music is far too obtrusive, the well photographed visuals confusingly inconsistent, and the jokes are annoyingly cheap. And just in case you're too stupid to not have already gotten the point of the film, Chiwetel Ejiofor tells it to you anyway ...'we brave immigrants are the ones who clean your rooms, drive your cabs and suck your c*?ks'... etc. The old 'immigrants are the vital oil in the capitalist machinery' speech. Please Mr Dangerfield... I mean, Mr Frears (et al), give over!! And what's with Tatou's character? One minute she's a meek, chaste 'Muslim' who minds her own affairs, then the next she's in love with her roommate (couldn't have seen that coming!), claims her hijab doesn't suit her (did we ever even see her wearing one?) and is walking around with hopes of going to America - the promise land - to find some happiness. (Although later, her wish to 'be Italian' hardly shows us that she had any self-esteem to begin with! A hard-up immigrant ripe for exploitation, or a misguided person paying the price for her bone-headed life-choices? You decide, because the film can't, so it just chose both.) The way these immigrants are constructed; they may just as well have been 2 down and out hobos on the New York streets in the 1930's or '70's, with the disabled one constantly asking his best buddy: 'Are we really going to California one day, Joey!? Are we really!?!' 'Sure we are, little Ratso. Sure we are'... Giveeeee oveeeer!!!!!!! Most of the time it's shot in such fast, dull (and sometimes unintentionally shaky) close-ups it felt like television. There is absolutely nothing interesting or new about the cinematic grammar on display in this film. Frears has, of course, done much TV... Maybe he should stay there and be a good TV director rather than a mediocre feature director.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
A spectacular start to a peerless set of films.
The way GL is trying to gradually develop the aesthetic of this new trilogy from very bright and innocent (in this film) to hazy, autumnal and slightly dark (in Attack Of The Clones) means that I can't wait for Ep3! You know it's going to be tragic, jet black and possessing of an even more hopeless ending than the one The Empire Strikes Back had!
The Star Wars films have effects and design above and beyond virtually everything else out there in cinema. Also, the character study of Anakin/Vader, and the exposition of the intricate story - in the background - of how a Devil worshipping politician gradually manipulates a corrupt democracy into a facist empire, while seducing powerful Anakin Skywalker to join the Sith, is a vastly underrated one.
This chapter is a fine introduction to characters and a universe that are on the verge of an inevitable destruction. Fun loving, but tragic.
Give and Take, and Take (2003)
cool London gangster crime saga
Pretty good low budgeter from the cockney east-end of London. The most surprising bit is the plot... It actually has some intricate planning and is paced well for a film that was obviously shot with very little money and prob very little time. NB - The director also wrote and edited the film so kudos must go to him for his tremendous efforts. Recommended action movie.