Wag The Dog (Barry Levinson, USA, 1997) August 11, 2006
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Comedy, 1990s, Drama, Film reviews, Crime , add a commentDir. Barry Levinson; screenplay by David Mamet; starring Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Anne Heche, Dennis Leary, William H. Macy
One of the great things about Wag The Dog is seeing Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro working together. The other great thing is that neither disappoint.
Levinson’s film nicely looks at top-level American corruption as spin-doctor De Niro attempts to take heat off a presidential scandal during the lead up to possible re-election. However, it’s the film’s satire of the media that is the most intriguing – Mamet and Levinson displaying just how powerful a tool it actually is.
Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, USA, 2000)
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : 2000s, Drama, Film reviews, Crime , add a commentDir. Steven Soderbergh; screenplay by Steven Gaghan; starring Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Jacob Vargas, Luis Guzman, Don Cheadle, Erika Christensen, Catherine Zeta Jones, Dennis Quaid, Albert Finney
It isn’t surprising Steven Mirrione won an Academy Award for his role in editing Soderbergh’s 2000 film. Soderbergh’s use of language from a scene beginning over general establishing shots really creates a sense that the viewer is peering into a world they are not supposed to. His film utilises handheld cameras and the steadicam to maintain a documentary style which superbly actualises what is a very potent problem in the United States. The way he interconnects how the drugs get into the country, how they are distributed, what happens to those who use them, and the people who are trying to stop it, is particularly well handled.
Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, USA, 1992)
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Comedy, 1990s, Drama, Film reviews , add a commentDir. James Foley; screenplay by David Mamet; starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Jonathan Pryce
One word to sum up this brilliant film: captivating. From its opening shot of Jack Lemmon and Ed Harris in the adjacent phone booths, to the closing credits, Foley’s film grips its audience and demands your full and unwavering attention.
Mamet’s scintillating script of desperate men and the bottom line, of commerce and life, of winning and losing, needs no superlatives attached to it – it’s already won a Pulitzer Prize in its first incarnation as a theatrical play. Yet here it is given a defining life, immortalised on film by some fabulous performances. Not only do we get hard-talking Ed Harris and the hilarious Alan Arkin, but Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon sparring off each other like they were born to work together.
Bringing Down The House (Adam Shankman, 2003) August 8, 2006
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Comedy, 2000s, Film reviews , add a commentDir. Adam Shankman; screenplay by Jason Filardi; starring Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright
Bringing Down The House surprised me because of how funny I found it. It’s a film that shows Steve Martin can still produce great comedy as the actor provides one of his better performances of recent times.
However, I didn’t like how the film makes light of racial stereotypes and in its dramatic finale seems to confirm those very stereotypes. It doesn’t work because it contradicts the film’s comedy and ultimately tells us we’re laughing at something we really shouldn’t be.
The idea of two characters from completely different backgrounds influencing each other for the better isn’t a unique idea and it doesn’t wholly work here, but when the director focuses purely on the humour, the film delivers.
Driver, The (Walter Hill, 1978)
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : 1970s, Drama, Film reviews, Action/Adventure, Thriller/Suspense, Crime , add a commentDir. Walter Hill; screenplay by Walter Hill; starring Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabella Adjani
Walter Hill’s 1978 film-noir is fascinating in its depiction of Bruce Dern’s desperate attempts to catch the illusive ‘Driver’. The great thing about this film is how the criminal becomes the anti-hero. Hill plays with western, film-noir and action movie genre conventions to great effect, but it’s his two main characters that draw the viewer’s attention. Ryan O’Neal as The Driver is ‘all cool’, while Dern is tired, pissed off and at the end of his tether. There’s some excellent car chases while Dern and O’Neal carry the film with strong performances. I particularly liked how the crook is less corrupt than the cop – it made for an interesting dynamic between the two characters.
Bringing Out The Dead (Martin Scorsese, 1999) August 7, 2006
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : 1990s, Drama, Film reviews, Crime , add a commentDir. Martin Scorsese; screenplay by Paul Schrader; starring Nicolas Cage, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Patricia Arquette
What immediately interested me with Scorsese’s 1999 film was the contrast between the drugs den and the hospital. One was dirty and claustrophobic, a place where legal drugs didn’t appear to be saving many lives. The other was calm, quiet; a place where illegal drugs seemed to be making people forget about how terrible or troubled their lives were, enabling them to step outside of themselves and have a moment of peace. It’s just another example of how Scorsese has mastered the art of taking a piece of real life and turning it on its head - changing one’s perceived assumptions.
Certainly, Scorsese delivers again with this film but given his amazing body of work it’s difficult to rate Bringing Out The Dead as one of his best. The direction and editing are second to none, but Schrader’s formulaic character arc begins to show wear and tear after the ninety minute mark where the film could have been cut down a little. The supporting cast are superb, especially Ving Rhames, and Cage maintains the audience’s attention even if he’s perhaps a little one-note.
Wolf Creek (Greg McLean, 2005)
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Horror, 2000s, Film reviews, Thriller/Suspense , add a commentDir. Greg McLean; screenplay by Greg McLean; starring John Jarrett, Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi, Gordon Poole
The biggest compliment you can give Greg McLean’s debut is that it leaves you with a taste in your mouth you never thought could ever get there. Long after the credits have rolled, this film will have you thinking about it. It’s a ballsy little low-budget horror movie that appears to have one intention – that being, sending viewers back behind the sofas (a place we haven’t been for a good long while). Terrifically paced, shot and edited with some excellent central performances and a script that steers away from cliché, the film is one of the best horror films of recent times.
Snowbeast (Herb Wallerstein, 1977)
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Horror, 1970s, Film reviews, Sci-fi/Fantasy , add a commentDir. Herb Wallerstein; screenplay by Joseph Stefano; starring Bo Svenson
Oh the joys of the watching films when you’re a child. You have these vague scenes in your head that you remember being so scary or so dazzling or so funny. Two things I remembered from a film I’d seen years and years ago when I mustn’t have been any older than six or seven, were a scene involving an abominable snowman smashing a window and attacking a big group of people in an auditorium, and Roy Scheider starring in the lead role. When I got the opportunity to watch Snowbeast I realised this was the film I’d wanted to see for so long. But I wished I hadn’t.
This made-for-television film really isn’t scary and the scene that I had imprinted on my mind from childhood ended up resembling what looked like a naked Father Christmas trying to steal presents from the children. You know, I never thought that hairy beard of his was an indication of what was beneath the red suit and black boots, but on this evidence, it most definitely is.
As I watched it and realised Roy Scheider wasn’t in the film, I wondered what had given me that impression in the first place. However, after the hour mark I knew. The film is pretty much just another Jaws rip-off with the Yeti taking over from the shark. Yes it has some enjoyable moments but the acting and script are woeful, and the director’s ploy of using red coloured transitions is both off-putting and rather useless.
A History Of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : 2000s, Drama, Film reviews, Thriller/Suspense, Crime , add a commentDir. David Cronenberg; screenplay by Josh Olsen; starring Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt
Cronenberg’s brilliant 2005 film is about fine lines. There’s a fine line between someone who can hate and someone who can love, shown in the film’s major twist, as well as in the way Cronenberg draws an indistinct division between sex and violence.
The opening shot – one continuous take that lasts several minutes – is masterful in both execution and in the way it seamlessly builds audience expectation before shredding that expectation to pieces.
The performances are solid but it’s Cronenberg and the source material that is the treat here. He questions where one extreme ends and another begins, and shows just how we can all fall into their trap.
Let It Ride (Joe Pytka, 1989) August 5, 2006
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Comedy, 1980s, Drama, I Gotta Get Me One Of Those..., Film reviews , add a commentSometimes I think Richard Dreyfuss gets a hard deal when it comes to his films – I mean it was Roy Scheider who got the limelight with his classic lines ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’ and ‘Smile you son of bitch’ in Jaws, while Dreyfuss had to make the most of his ‘this was no boating accident’ and building mash potato mountains in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, but they just don’t have the savoured iconography of his peers accomplishments. There’s no doubt he’s been in some of the greatest films to come out of modern American cinema, not least Spielberg’s two classics, but Rob Reiner’s simply superb Stand By Me, George Lucas’ early (and arguably best) film American Graffiti, and the Neil Simon/Herbert Ross collaboration The Goodbye Girl. Like the man himself, some of his little-seen gems require some more exposure, and personally I’ve never had as much fun watching such comic-greats as Down And Out In Beverly Hills, Tin Men, Stakeout, What About Bob? and Moon Over Parador. It seems that, like so many, Let It Ride is destined to remain one of those movies that shouts at the top its lungs and yet can’t be heard. A film those lucky enough to have seen, hold dear, and those that haven’t look puzzled when told the title and say ‘Let it what?’ Simply put, Let It Ride is a brilliant comedy that can’t fail to put a smile on your face.
There’s a disturbed logic about the film since it depicts a guy gambling his way to riches, the very recreation that concocts moral ambiguity in the United States. Yet it hardly deplores such activities as our would-be hero Trotter (Richard Dreyfuss) keeps placing bets and winning them, and as he says, ‘he’s having a very good day’. The film tells the story of one Jay Trotter, who happens across his friend’s taped recording of a conversation between two people who discuss a ‘sure thing winner’ in Saturday’s first horse race of the day. Trotter, believing in some sort of divine intervention or just blind luck, takes this advice and places all the money he has on the horse. As the horse he bet wins the race, Trotter can’t believe what’s happening to him and suddenly finds himself having the best day at the races even his wildest dreams couldn’t have made-up.
The opening scene perhaps justifies the film’s stance when Trotter and his wife discuss the merits of fortune cookies in a restaurant, and in no time at all, all the customers are chiming in with their views about fortunes and luck. It seemingly argues therefore, that instead of being a film about the merits and fortune’s of gambling, it’s more a film about the merits and fortune’s of faith. In one scene, Trotter goes to the men’s room and asks God to give him one day, one big win. After all, as Trotter tells a friend, today isn’t ‘gambling’ because gambling is about risk and taking a chance. He so believes he’s on to a winner, he ultimately ‘knows’ it, therefore, eliminating any risk or chance. Certainly, if the film is about faith then it throws up even more questions than if it were not, but its sense of optimism is nothing to be discredited, as any sugary-sentiment is eliminated here, and the idea that everyone can have that one day when everything goes right is hardly deplorable, even with its basis in fantasy.
Based on Jay Cronley’s book Good Vibes, Nancy Dowd’s script stays true to the original material (however the ending is different), with many of the film’s funniest lines coming straight from the source text. Certainly one of the most appealing things about the film is its many supporting characters that perfectly overplay the material, contrasting a terrifically energetic but dry Richard Dreyfuss. There’s Trotter’s neurotic wife (played by Teri Garr who also played Dreyfuss’ wife in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind) who we meet in the opening scene as Dreyfuss and Garr recite scripted lines about what they are not going to do in order to save their marriage (he says he won’t gamble anymore, she says she wont cause a ‘scene’ in public anymore). The clinical way in which the couple go about their relationship (scripted lines at dinner no less), and the running sub-plot of Trotter’s uncanny way of making fast calculations furthers the idea that the film is about faith, given that smart logic and shrewd behaviour hasn’t got him very far before. When Trotter’s at his favourite bar, already having won plenty of money and being treated like a god amongst the gambling proletariat, his question of collectively making a bet with them falls on deaf ears, each person’s smile dropping and their attention turned away – perhaps what they lack is his faith, or at least faith in him?
David Johansen as Trotter’s best friend is great in his role as the desperately unlucky one, while Jennifer Tilly plays the young sexpot who hangs onto old rich man Greenberg played by Edward Walsh. Evangeline (Cynthia Nixon) has her first day at the races, her preconceptions clouded by an over-zealous boyfriend promising fortune that just isn’t there; Tony Cheeseburger (Richard Dimitri) is the resident gambler whose always around wearing his fake gold chains and a tropical shirt (an indication of past glory or a covert exterior to hide his failings perhaps); and the man known only as the ticket seller (Robbie Coltrane), whose passion for his position and wishful stories of horse track history lends himself to the unfortunate crowd of misfits, their enthusiasm a virtue clouding a hollowness within. Richard Dreyfuss carries the film however, with leading-man assurance, but like the many characters he interacts with throughout the day, he’s also as hollow as they are to begin with. It seems that their unfortunate predicaments may have brought them to the track but where he and they differ is ultimately in the message of the film. Evangeline can only see instant gold and riches, while Trotter’s best friend Looney wants to blackmail the men who helped Trotter win the first race, and Tilly’s character Vicki is only there because of the free hands she takes from her rich partner Greenberg. Nothing more than greed on her part, not unlike Greenberg himself who, already rich and powerful, complains when he loses a little money. There’s no logic to winning (Trotter proved that) and there’s no luck (at least Looney doesn’t have any), so in their greed and desperation to rise to the top, Trotter slips quietly by, returning the offending tape to the men that helped him and making-up with his wife. The moral justification of his actions perhaps sets him apart immediately but ultimately he believed in something beyond the financial, and in this case it’s his faith that makes him a winner.
When the betting is done and the last race has finished Let It Ride establishes itself as one of the best of the eighties unknown quantities. Director Joe Pytka never allows the film to get bogged down and with the running time clocking in at under ninety minutes the film hardly outstays its welcome. Nancy Dowd’s script is crisp and has an under-layer (drawn from the book) that provides a little more than the usually superficial commercial comedies of this nature, and with such dialogue as when Trotter asks a rather horny, upper-class lady if she wants a drink, she replies: ‘I don’t see why not, I’m on the pill!’, you know you’re on to something good.