White Oleander
REVIEWED 10/02, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

I'd really love to tell you that this movie is rife with deep seething undercurrents of volitile anger. That it has a superbly crafted script that coldly stabs through the heart of this offering with a never before seen level of mindbending intensity. That's what I'd expected, going in. However, because the screen time's other four fifths kept deviating from the only real compelling aspect of this fairly boring and scattered snoozefest, I honestly can't use any of those big juicy adjectives. Sorry.

'White Oleander' drags us through the hopelessly unstable years in the confusing life of Astrid Magnussen (Alison Lohman), after her self-proclaimed strong-minded and eccentrically scary mother (Michelle Pfeiffer, as Ingrid) is convicted of murdering a boyfriend in a calculated fit of jilted rage. One would question the dubious wisdom in the prison system allowing Astrid to remain in contact with and continually visit her sociopathic parent. However, as this lovely young teenager attempts to rebuild her life with numbingly slack-jawed bewilderment while being passively bounced from one disfunctional adoptive home to another, her grip on momma's callously poisonous apron strings is pretty much encouraged to remain inexplicably tight. Even when she's finally placed in the care of an adoring yet emotionally fragile woman (Renée Zellweger), I guess the overbearing devil Astrid knows still seems more loving than the angel she's afraid to get close enough to know. Well, until it's too late, anyways.

I suspect the gyst of Lohman's comparably weak portrayal throughout was intended to succinctly illustrate what an introverted sycophantic puppet the egocentric artist Ingrid had created in her daughter. Unfortunately, she's not really a capable enough actor yet to turn a sows ear script into a silk purse of gold, let alone unfairly carry the majority of this picture's rather dull weepy storyline. Whatever underlying emotions that may be justifiably bubbling under this child's surface simply don't materialize on camera - except in a pair of bookendish overdubbed scenes, where we see it in her own artwork. Otherwise leaving an audience of non-psychics sitting in the dark, in frustrated anticipation of the next jail block moment spotlighting Pfeiffer's overwhelmingly more interesting steely-eyed and mantis-like character. She shines here, as a complex intelligent femme fatale in a cage, caressing a deep gangrenous wound at the core of her sly jagged nastiness. Frankly, you could fast forward through everything else and come out feeling reasonably more satisfied than slipping into a coma by sitting through all of it.

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Whale Rider
REVIEWED 07/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Steeped in the traditions and ancient ways of his fellow contemporary New Zealanders, headstrong Chief Koro (Rawiri Paratene) refuses to acknowledge his rightful blood heir. See, things went wrong twelve years ago. That's when his first born son Porourangi (Cliff Curtis), grief-stricken at the loss of his own wife and newborn son during childbirth, turned his back on this small Maori village to pursue a burgeoning artist's career in Europe. Much like Paikea, the legendary whale rider who is said to have led the ancestors of these people of Te Tai Rawhiti across the Atlantic from Hawaiki Centuries ago, when Porourangi denies his destiny and leaves, he takes the soul of his indigenous East Coast culture with him. Leaving his aging parents to raise his dead son's twin sister (Keisha Castle-Hughes as Pai) on their own. Now, a dozen years later, Koro calls all firstborn boys to train under his rough guidance, determined to find a new chief to lead his people out of this darkness that (he believes) has befallen them. Consciously ignoring the fact that his doted-on young granddaughter possesses all of the skills and an inherent connection to nature which make her his obvious choice - simply because she's a girl.

Admittedly, I figured this flick was going to be just another not-so thinly veiled male-basher. However, Director/Screenwriter Niki Caro does a wonderful job of making sure that the entrenched patriarchal beliefs presented here aren't summarily demonized, as the story of Pai's struggle for acceptance tenderly questions rigid norms that - in this case - no-longer seem to be relevant. Our young heroine simply thinks and acts in ways that come naturally to her - regardless of gender - whether she's defending herself stick fighting with the Mau rakau champ or sensing whale songs that echo through the ocean from miles offshore. She's an Underdog you want to root for, because of this incredibly well crafted script. Paratene gives us a superbly believable performance as the curmudgeonly altruistic yet thunderously belligerent elder who will not veer from all that he has been entrusted to uphold throughout his life. In his own words, "You don't mess with sacred things." Curtis is also great, as a man broken by the burden of both his predetermined standing and his desolate loss. These are three incredible characters, supported by a cast of captivating and sardonic players in their own right. Sure, the lines between realism and mysticism are greyed for the sake of artistic license at times throughout, making this feel a little like a simplistic After School Special, but it actually works. This fairly important and freshly original film is about prophecy being fulfilled, as well as being about the sometimes painful difficulties that arise surrounding monumental change. On a purely individualistic basis, and for the betterment of a tightly knit yet slowly dying community. Surprise yourself by checking out this worthwhile keeper.

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The Wild Dogs
REVIEWED 08/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Teetering on the brink of poverty and unemployment, Bogdan (Mihai Calota) meekly goes about his day as Bucharest's worst dog catcher throughout the city's crumbling streets, until his unhappily married life is changed by the contents of a small cardboard box found under the ruin of an abandoned bath house. Meanwhile, pathetically bored Canadian porn photographer Geordi's (writer/director Thom Fitzgerald) boss-enforced 6 AM flight to Romania garners a tenuous friendship with Colin (Geraint Wyn Davies), an outwardly prim yet audaciously salacious six-year diplomatic advisor to Romania. Geordi's been sent to cull new and preferably under-aged smut material overseas, but quickly becomes sidetracked by the gypsies and the poor who work the highways begging for money. One beggar in particular, named 'Sour Grapes' (played by Visinel Burcea) by his peers, is a physically handicapped slave whose knees were mutilated at birth to bend the wrong way to prevent his escape, who this Lolita-hunting tourist eventually decides to help. He can't help the little girl who disappeared shortly after her father undressed her five year-old form for Geordi's unflinching lens. He's not interested in helping Radu (Marcel Unguriano Catalin), a starry-eyed midget who ekes out a self-destructive living performing for the rich at their private clubs. Nor can he do much for the legless little street urchin named Dorutu (Nelu Dinu), who's caught the motherly eye of Colin's love-starved wife. And, Geordi doesn't know about Bogdan or the discovered box of puppies that has inspired that fellow to inconspicuously build a canine spa for the few of the two hundred thousand strays he's sent out to collect for daily caging and slaughter. Not until it’s too late to do anything about it, anyways. However, it soon becomes clear that this visiting fleshmonger-turned-philanthropist will have to turn to blackmail in order to get the results he wants from his rather nasty new pal in the Consulate.

Straight up, this celluloid fiasco is a total load of junk. Boring. Disjointed. Lifeless. It’s a typically lousy Canadian flick that’s little more than a pointless showcase for Fitzgerald's inability as a screenwriter, filmmaker and actor. He stinks as all three. This movie stinks in any category. Even the few fresh talents we do get to see onscreen - such as Calota and Catalin - are so badly marginalized and bogged down by the teeth-grindingly stupefying dialogue and completely bland direction they're given that their efforts are an absolute waste of time here. Three quarters of what's served up could have easily ended up on the cutting room floor without anyone other than perverts and censors missing anything remotely watchable. As one of several openly disgusted audience members, desperately waiting for the closing credits to cue the sweet sweet salvation of escape from this stinker, I couldn’t help thinking that Thom simply wanted to go on a paid vacation to Europe, and obviously managed to scam enough naïve backers, and shoot enough vacuous-as-poignant footage, to avoid getting turfed in jail for fraud upon his return. Sure, I've made it sound like there's a story from my above description, but that's only because I had two days to sit in front of my Blackout-killed computer to get creative with that outline... Bottom line is, even comatose lobotomy patients in full body steel-enforced casts will want to jack-knife out of bed and gouge their eyes and ears out before jumping under a runaway snowplow rather than endure this mindlessly torturous, embarrassingly amateurish, outrageously annoying, nauseatingly - well, you get the idea. It stinks. Badly.

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Winged Migration
REVIEWED 11/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Presented as exploring the mystery of birds in flight, this three-year project involved four hundred and fifty people - including fourteen cinematographers - tracking and filming the seasonal migratory paths of several different flocks of nine to hundreds through forty countries and seven continents. From the Graylag Goose that flies eighteen hundred miles from its native Scandinavia in the Autumn, to the Sandhill Crane that navigates an astounding twenty-five hundred miles from South America to the Arctic Circle. Clark's Grebes from Oregon, African White Pelicans, and an assortment of species are joined at sometimes extremely close range during their yearly exodus and return - wonderfully recorded with the aide of small planes, helicopters, remote controlled models, ultra-light motorized aircraft, gliders and balloons - as these feathered travelers wing their way over vast stretches of terrain and ocean in what is poetically described as an uninterrupted dialogue with the wind. We see Canada Geese move through placid forests of maples and the scorched Arizona desert. Whooper Swans taking a mountain-view rest on a frozen Siberian lake. And, the scores of ducks and other fowl that contend with Man's intrusion and exploitation of their centuries-old journey across the world.

Well, I pretty well expected this 2001 flick to be a cinematic version of those old Hinterland's Who's Who TV clips or National Geographic magazine. What I didn't expect was just how boring birds are. I mean, it's not as though I thought this flick would pry open some mystical world that we've never seen before, where Bald Eagles get together for bingo or Puffins build atomic bombs, but I was hoping for more than what anyone who's watched The Discovery Channel for a weekend has already seen. What does grab your attention are the wide shots of sometimes majestically huge land and seascapes that these critters fly over. What is interesting is how this film was shot, where the audience is given a virtual feeling of being a part of this or that flock of birds, because of the ingenuity of the production crew to get so close in mid-air. Sure, there are stints of slightly flaky narrative by co-writer Jacques Perrin and a regular flow of titles explaining each species and the distances they travel, but you're basically left sitting there watching these birds do their thing in silent wonderment, without really given much in the way of a storyline to follow. This picture is definitely eye candy for bird watchers, already armed with enough encyclopedic knowledge beforehand. If directors Jacques Cluzaud and Michel Debats had bothered to show us some behind the scenes footage (as seen in the impressive website at http://www.sonyclassics.com/wingedmigration/index_flash.html) and hadn't splintered our focus by showing so many different flocks in a slightly disorganized fashion, this would've been a far better movie. As it stands, 'Le Peuple Migrateur' ('Winged Migration') will likely end up boring generations of high school biology students for years to come.

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Welcome to Mooseport
REVIEWED 03/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Handy Harrison Jr. (Ray Romano) has a good life, running his small town hardware store and making the occasional house call as Mooseport, Maine's resident plumber. However, when boisterously popular two-term President Monroe 'Eagle' Cole (Gene Hackman) lands with a fully-slated retirement of speaking engagements and honorary doctorate ceremonies, a commemorative library and a book deal rivaling those of former Head of State Bill Clinton, all hell breaks loose almost before the local high school band finishes squeaking out The Star Spangled Banner. See, Handy's six-year relationship with Veterinarian Sally Mannis (Maura Tierney) seems to be stuck in a rut these days. He's happily oblivious, but Sally is getting tired of waiting around for Harrison to pop the question. This latest false alarm, and Handy's tardiness in showing up for Cole's blue ribbon welcome by this otherwise sleepy community of eccentrics, was pretty well the last straw. So, when Mannis catches the conspicuously flirtatious eye of this recently divorced national celebrity, she decides to go out on a date with him. Much to the dumbfounded chagrin of Handy, who quickly finds out that the Mooseport counselors have approached the Eagle to replace their Mayor of twenty-four years in office and recently deceased mere weeks before Election Day. So, not only is the President stealing his longtime sweetheart, but because Irma at the old Town Hall convinced Handy to run for the job a while back, he's faced with the daunting reality of having to go up against Cole in the political arena as well. Boy, that sucks...

Taking his first step onto the big screen from his popular television series 'Everybody Loves Raymond', comedian Ray Romano gives us his decidedly soft and polite brand of humour throughout this rather fluffy hour and forty minute snooze fest of incessant whining and corny laughs. Hackman's wildly over the top caricature pretty well kills any hope that Doug Richardson's story or Tom Schulman's screenplay has a fighting chance with any moviegoer expecting to do more than crack an impatient grin here. And, that's too bad. There's definitely enough groundwork for 'Welcome to Mooseport' to be ridiculously hilarious at times, but it's almost as though director Donald Petrie was unsure just what to do with this cast. Deferring to the likes of Christine Baranski as shrewish former First Lady Charlotte Cole and Rip Torn as hard-hitting media consultant Bert Langdon to fill things out with their undeniable comedic presence. They fail. So does Fred Savage's teeth-grating performance as a weasely yet dopey Presidential assistant. Frankly, it's like watching a runaway stagecoach pulled by a team of horses all vying to slam into their own particular canyon wall here. With Romano and Tierney surprisingly managing to steer clear through the mayhem, but really only within the context of their characters being the least nauseating of the bunch. Sure, there's a happy ending that borders on the inane at times, but I'm probably the only one who's seen it since I was alone at the screening come the closing credits. It isn't a complete stinker as a slightly mature-tinged family picture chock full of disappointingly familiar stereotypes plucked from the Comedy Channel's vault of syndicated forgettables, but I honestly wouldn't recommend you bother checking this one out unless you're looking to rent a piece of mental bubblegum to avoid mowing the lawn. Yawn.

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Walking Tall
REVIEWED 03/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Honourably discharged eight-year veteran Sergeant Chris Vaughn (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) returns home to his parent's sleepy mountain town in Kitsap County, Washington with the intent of settling into quiet civilian life and getting a job at the local Hamilton Lumber Works. That last part doesn't happen. No sooner does he step off the ferry to discover that the mill was closed three years ago and that the entire place has drastically changed during his tour of duty, than he finds himself slashed to ribbons and left for dead on a rain swept moonlit county bridge after a brutally escalated brawl at the Wild Cherry Casino - the new economic lifeblood and haven of moral decline in this backwater working class community, owned by lumber heir turned pit boss mogul Jay Hamilton Jr. (Neal McDonough). As Chris' old buddy Ray (Johnny Knoxville) points out, it's not exactly home anymore. Big city corruption has dug in deep. The only good thing about that first day back was seeing former girlfriend Deni (Ashley Scott) again, despite his surprise at her working as a pole-writhing exotic dancer at that seedy joint. Unfortunately, as Vaughn's horrifying wounds begin to heal and things start returning to normal, his young nephew Pete is suddenly hospitalized for overdosing on crystal meth. Chris refuses to let this stand. Enraged with the knowledge that the drugs came from those hired goons working security at Hamilton's gambling house, this one man army immediately embarks on a two-fisted club-swinging mission of vengeful justice towards cleaning up his hometown. One that surprisingly garners him the Sheriff's badge, and unsurprisingly wins him a dangerously powerful enemy bent on maintaining the status quo - regardless of who gets hurt. Or, killed...

This is apparently Hollywood's second big screen try at telling the actual story of Buford Hayes Pusser (1937-1974), an albeit temporarily enlisted marine and ex-wrestler who returned home from Chicago to work as a Constable under his Adamsville Chief of Police father - who he subsequently replaced - and became McNairy County, Tennessee's youngest and probably most renowned elected Sheriff at the age of 26. A roughly carved four-foot cord of wood was Pusser's preferred weapon of choice during his three consecutive terms bringing law and order to notorious criminals and legendary moonshine-makers that dominated and terrorized the county line bordering Mississippi in the mid-1960's. The original 'Walking Tall' (1973) turned out to be a $23 million blockbuster, spawning two sequels, a seven-episode television series, and a made for TV movie starring Brian Dennehy in 1979. I don't remember any of that stuff. Just as it's highly unlikely that I'll have any trouble forgetting this tritely concocted seventy-five minute blip directed by Kevin Bray that makes the outlandish claim to be 'inspired by a true story'. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is basically a walking, talking, thug-whackin' lump of hamburger here, stumbling through this live action cartoon's suspiciously cobbled together scenes of non-dimensional dialogue that merely serve as embarrassingly generic breathers wedged between each over-long pummeling of roundhouse bullet-riddled violence throughout. Bereft of all but the vaguest of references to Pusser's extraordinary tale, this stinker ends up being little more than a Smackdown hootenanny in the heart of hillbilly country, where some good ol' boys gone bad shoot off their dang ol' guns and thangs get blowed up real good. Yee-haw. Don't waste your time with this brain cell-killing extended promo for an otherwise promising star who really should have pushed for a more satisfying story and character development here. Yawn.

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Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
REVIEWED 05/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

This sadly overlooked 2002 offering by co-writer/director Lone Scherfig beautifully captures Scotland's apparently national sense of often dry and slightly morose humour, in giving us Jamie Sives as the irreverently smart alec and continually suicidal Wilbur - a young man who his shy, long-suffering older brother Harbour (Adrian Rawlins) is burdened with, shortly after a petition kicks Wilbur out of Glasgow Hospital's out patient help group. Rising star Shirley Henderson is outstanding as Alice, the quietly confused love interest of both these brothers while being the mousy single mother of bright young Mary (wonderfully played by Lisa McKinlay), however Henderson isn't really given much of a chance to really push her character too far beyond her similarly played role seen in the UK farce 'Once Upon a Time in the Midlands' (2002).

Maybe those two small films were shot simultaneously, I'm not sure. However, Scherfig's and co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen's lovably dour story is definitely delightfully quirky while presenting this fairly neurotic bunch repressed to the point of bursting in front of your eyeballs, throughout this flick's almost two hour runtime. Rawlins' exquisitely subdued anguish is sometimes breath-taking, and well worth sitting through all on its own - you really end up wanting to know this guy - but the efforts of additional co-stars Mads Mikkelsen and Julia Davis superbly balance this cast with their own brand of humour. Sure, the thickly burred accents and relatively deadpan laughs might be a hindrance to some moviegoers, but I thoroughly enjoyed this screening and would recommend you check it out as a smart breather from the more over the top big name comedies that steamroller through the theatres. Good stuff.

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White Chicks
REVIEWED 06/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

The Wayans Brothers star in this intentionally irreverent costumed comedy as Manhattan-based FBI screw-ups Kevin (Shawn Wayans) and Marcus (Marlon Wayans) Copeland going deep undercover on a Labour Day romp in the elitist Hamptons (primarily shot on location in and around Vancouver) after their latest anti-kidnapping assignment babysitting rich yet ditzy corporate heir Olsen Twin clones Britney and Tiffany Wilson ends up forcing those barely smarter agents to pose - in full disguise - as these popular blonde sisters.

Quite frankly, I went into the theatre expecting to be repeatedly insulted or nudged into a coma by what initially looked like yet another desperately unfunny one-joke offering where folk of one ethnicity try to pass off a kind of contemporary spin on racist bygone Vaudillian stereotypes of people with another skin colour as dubiously acceptable entertainment in this day and age. Yes, this movie does contain a certain amount of that, but it's primarily Black guys done up as White women poking fun at those stereotypes - both Black and White - as well some fairly fluffy and clumsily presented gender differences. The 'Tootsie' (1982) angle falls flat, quite frankly. However, what really makes this fairly pedantic screening such a worthless stinker is the lazy writing throughout. Emmy award-winning director Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn and Marlon, Andrew McElfresh, Michael Anthony Snowden and Xavier Cook collectively cobbled this hackneyed script together, and yet there are perhaps two half-decent punch lines in all to show for it. One plot-important chuckle from an annoying hairy rat of a dog. The other, a goofy prolonged face-contortion scene from co-star Terry Crews as womanizing sports celebrity Latrell Spencer. Neither bothering to hold your attention much, for the remainder of this hundred and five-minute disaster. Sure, two-time Oscar-winning designer for 'Mrs. Doubtfire' (1993) and 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' (1992) Brian Sipe's prosthetic make up creations are definitely impressive if not slightly confusing, but his team's obvious talents quickly feel wasted as you're forced to sit through reams of incredibly boring stupidity that never really seem to go anywhere, except from one lame gag to the next. And, political correctness aside, I had a tough time telling the disguised Wayans apart - despite some attempt through wardrobe and co-stars Jessica Cauffiel and Busy Philipps continually addressing them by their characters' characters' names - while they were hamming it up for the camera behind their masks. Maybe that didn't matter, but it made following along with this celluloid turkey's wisp of a plot little more than an aggravating exercise in futility, eventually leading to my giving up and just waiting around until either of those indistinguishable white faces were mercifully peeled off or the closing credits signaled the sweet sweet release of freedom. Steer clear of this one, folks.

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Without a Paddle
REVIEWED 09/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Three childhood Oregon-born friends - ambivalent man child Jerry Conlaine (Matthew Lillard, 'Scream' (1996), 'Scooby Doo 2' (2004)), jaded drifter Tom Marshall (comedian Dax Shepard) and neurotic Doctor Dan Mott (Seth Green, 'Austin Powers in Goldmember' (2002), 'The Italian Job' (2003)) are reunited at their successfully adventurous boyhood pal Billy Newwood's untimely funeral, quickly launching them headlong into the wilds of the Cascade Mountains on a deliriously hopeful yet seemingly futile reclamation of a long-lost fantasy in searching for actual highjacking legend Dan 'DB' Cooper's daring Thanksgiving 1971 stolen loot in one last disaster-riddled hurrah before turning thirty, in director Steven Brill's ('Little Nicky' (2000), 'Mr. Deeds' (2002)) latest comedy.

Apparently completely shot on location in New Zealand, it's almost fitting that this fairly light hearted mature romp features Oscar-nominated Burt Reynolds ('Deliverance' (1972), 'Boogie Nights' (1997)) as Cooper's supposed accomplice and ornery mountain man Del Knox here, since 'Without a Paddle' does feel a lot like a goofy updated homage to Reynolds' memorably terrifying cinematic canoe trek with co-stars Jon Voight and Ned Beatty of thirty-two years ago at times. Without the famed dueling banjos or "Squeal like a pig" moments, though. As it stands, this primary ensemble trio does manage capable performances throughout, sharing the spotlight and a wealth of irreverently crass one-liners as they come face to face with a slightly confused Grizzly bear, encounter a couple of trigger-happy hillbillies subsequently bent on tracking down and killing them, and discover two free-spirited Earth Child nature lovers living high in a big ol' tree nestled deep in the woods while Jerry, Tom and Dan stumble around in their poorly planned quest for that elusive sack of stolen cash. Problem is, much of it feels played up for the camera. Jay Leggett's and Mitch Rouse's screenplay really just offers up a ridiculously fluffy popcorn flick that hurls these somewhat dim-witted friends into a series of misadventures that, while surprisingly culminating in a fairly satisfying tale of male bonding near the end, seem to primarily serve as slapstick contrivances rife with clichéd caricatures towards forcing these three to eventually run around in the pouring rain in their underwear. The biggest joke seems rather silly and strangely homophobic, so it's actually a huge relief when Reynolds and supporting cast members Ethan Suplee and Abraham Benrubi as the gun-totin' good ol' boys Elwood and Dennis step in to kick start the story with their collective screen presence. Don't get me wrong, Green absolutely steals the show here as the most personable and hilarious star of this ninety-fine minute bushwhacker, pretty well single handedly keeping a paying audience from slipping into a humour-parched coma during several key moments, but 'Without a Paddle' definitely isn't the uproarious over the top side splitter that it obviously aspires to be. Sure, there are some truly funny moments sprinkled throughout, but they're rare and sometimes just as tough to find as what probably remains of the $200,000 ransom Cooper escaped with after trading in the passengers of that fateful Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle before reportedly parachuting into infamy over Southwestern Washington State. This one's mildly enjoyable but hardly as memorable.

Check it out as a second or third rental choice, but don't expect too much beyond Green's and Lillard's reasonably entertaining shenanigans.

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Wicker Park
REVIEWED 09/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Openly billed as being a remake of British Independent Film Award-winning writer/director Gilles Mimouni's 1996 French film 'L'Appartement', this surprisingly interesting but fairly scattered experiment stars Josh Hartnett ('Black Hawk Down' (2001), 'Hollywood Homicide' (2003)) as former Wicker Park Photo and Video store employee turned budding Young Turk investment broker Matthew Simon, whose simmering residual affections for lithe blonde Chicago Ballet Theatre dancer and ex-girlfriend Lisa (former German fashion model Diane Kruger, 'Troy' (2004)) immediately resurface when he believes that he's heard her voice and seen her bolting from a restaurant's phone booth two years after her sudden disappearance shattered his heart. His feelings remain so strong that the throes of his earlier passionate obsession seem to grip him to the point where, when he discovers a key card to her sixth floor room at that windy city's Drake Hotel, Matthew secretly postpones flying seven thousand miles for an account-clinching meeting in China - and surreptitiously evades his somewhat overbearing fiancée Rebecca after her loving send off at O'Hare Airport - to run off in search of his long lost love, only to discover a mousy brunette (Rose Byrne) has curiously assumed Lisa's identity.

Well, this could have been an incredibly lush character study of blind obsession featured through the three intertwining stories here, if director Paul McGuigan ('The Acid House' (1998), 'The Reckoning' (2003)) hadn't apparently let go of the reins in the editing room. Hartnett and Byrne both pull in incredibly good performances for the most part, but their efforts feel completely overshadowed come the second reel by the aggravatingly intrusive work of editor Andrew Hulme. The process steals the spotlight, without offering up any real reward for working through this big screen challenge that's neither a thriller nor particularly suspenseful. Frankly, unlike '21 grams' (2003), where that flick's jumble of jigsaw puzzle-like pieces are each masterfully depicted as self-contained cinematic gems within the finished construct, this hundred and fifteen minute screening's progressively wild non-linear structure really does appear to be self indulgent and unnecessary for the most part. Irrevocably turning much of its intended audience's potential enjoyment into absolute confusion long before the closing credits send ticket holders out of the theatre looking for a big bucket of headache pills. And, that's a shame. It's clear that this flick really does have some very impressive ideas about retelling the same romantic-tinged turn of events from alternate perspectives, and succeeds in offering up many superior moments of truly fascinating plot development that could have easily been taken much further with astounding results. Problem is, all of that becomes mired by the meddling of less capable hands in post-production, as well as Mimouni's slightly contrived Americanized screenplay that sometimes suffers from bouts of silliness. For instance, why do we see visibly shaken Matthew reacting to this second Lisa's unexpected advances by getting drunk with her, leading to them hopping into bed together, while he's still obsessed with recapturing the memory of his time with the first Lisa? It makes no sense. Except in hindsight. Well, perhaps not. This is actually bound to be an excruciatingly annoying experience, except for people who like to interpret movies for their friends afterwards.

Check out this one as a challenging rental for some wonderful acting, but be prepared to rewind and rewatch portions of it in order to keep track.

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We Don't Live Here Anymore
REVIEWED 09/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

The fairly conspicuous infidelity that ten year married, college Literature teacher Jack Linden (Mark Ruffalo; 'Collateral' (2004), 'My Life Without Me' (2003)) has enjoyed with his auburn-haired alcoholic wife Terry's (Laura Dern; 'Jurassic Park' (1993), 'I am Sam' (2001)) best friend Edith Evans (Oscar-nominated Naomi Watts; 'Mulholland Dr.' (2001), '21 Grams' (2003)) becomes complicated by conscience, when Jack realizes that his closest buddy and fellow educator, Edith's philandering, Creative Writing professor Hank (television's 'Six Feet Under' star Peter Krause; 'The Truman Show' (1998)), has been putting the moves on Terry - whose awkward hesitation begins to galvanize into openly spiteful cheating, once she discovers evidence of Jack's carnal betrayal. Reportedly based on parts taken from former Marine and ex-Massachusetts teacher, famed Louisiana-born writer Andre Dubus' (1936-1999) short compilations, Adultery & Other Choices, and We Don't Live Here Anymore, first published in 1977 and 1984 respectively, this fairly self absorbed hundred-minute movie feels like an Acting Workshop stage to screen offering curiously burdened by hefty soliloquies a lot of the time. In a bad way.

Screenwriter Larry Gross' ('48 Hrs.' (1982), 'True Crime' (1999)) script tends to aggravatingly meander, choosing to fill out key dramatic scenes with boring chit chat and scattered emotion-fuelled babblings, instead of allowing these excruciatingly uninteresting characters to respond like real people. For instance, Terry's teary-eyed response to finding her ironically accusatory hubby awake in bed - after her rather noisy late night tryst with Hank in the front seat of their car, under their bedroom window, in the front drive of their house - is to rattle out an over long stream of verbose confusion that begins with, "I need to be made love to," followed by, "while I was with him, I wanted to be with you," and ending with her mocking and snarling at Jack as he ambivalently storms away. Huh? Is this supposed to be an unrealistic spin on a beleaguered Shakespearean theme? If so, this Sundance-winning yawner from Warner Independent Films hits the nail on the head with dismal, coma-inducing success. However, if director John Curran ('Praise' (1998)) was hoping for a more believably contemporary film here, one would reasonably expect to actually see far more lamps and furniture being violently trashed by all concerned. Particularly whenever this troubled couple finally gets around to expressing their smoldering mess of anger and regret and raw disdain for their own and each other's weak stupidity. That's where this movie irrevocably fails to captivate. Real life is far more obvious and physically exhausting. And, deliciously interesting, if carefully transcribed and executed for a paying audience to tap in to. Problem is, 'We Don't Live Here Anymore' clicks out more as a word-loving writer's inexperienced suspicions regarding the results of adultery, frankly. Sure, Ruffalo and cast do sporadically pull in some fairly good moments on screen, and child co-stars Haili Page and Jennifer Bishop (portraying young Natasha Linden and Sharon Evans) are absolutely wonderful in their small roles as precocious observers, but there's really nothing to pull this story together before the final credits roll. That opportunity is lost, unfortunately.

Steer clear of this hugely disappointing turkey, unless you simply can't get enough of Watt's current teasing penchant for throwing her knickers to the wind or you truly need to sit through these otherwise capable actors simulating sex without showing anything - including their proven talents as convincing actors seen elsewhere.

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Wimbledon
REVIEWED 10/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Tired and disgruntled, with his decade-old ranking of eleventh in the world of international tennis players long since reduced to a hundred and nineteen, over the hill at thirty-one career pro Peter Colt (Paul Bettany; 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001), 'Master and Commander' (2003)) has decided to end his recent losing streak once this tournament at Wimbledon is over. Not that anyone except Peter seems to care. However, his plans for an illustriously dismal retirement into a life of obscurity teaching backswings to wealthy widows at the local country club quickly go awry after Colt instantly becomes smitten with tenacious American up and comer Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst; 'Interview with the Vampire' (1994), 'Spider-Man' (2002)) - much to the chagrin of her over-protective father (Sam Neill) - and Peter soon realizes that he actually has a shot at becoming the first Englishman to win top prize at that one hundred and twenty-seven year-old hallowed lawn tennis championship court.

It's fairly amazing how immediately this picture draws you in to a story that's so heavily based within a sport that's initially pretty uninteresting from the outside looking in. Much of that success comes from Emmy-winning director Richard Loncraine ('Brimstone & Treacle' (1982), 'Richard III' (1995)) giving Bettany and Dunst incredibly personable characters to portray throughout here. Specifically Bettany, who is absolutely marvelous in this starring role apparently tailor-made for Hugh Grant a few years ago, as a fed up and bedraggled 'has been' who's lost his edge and seems convinced there's nothing left in him but a gut full of self-doubt, inspired to recaptured greatness by this unexpected burst of romance that's snuck up on Colt through meeting Bradbury. Yes, this is definitely a typical British-style Hollywood romantic comedy sometimes burdened by a familiar boy meets/loves/loses/etc girl plotline, but this surprisingly superior offering exceeds expectations and capably pushes beyond the sport of tennis itself because of the hugely clever dialogue this obviously perfect cast is given through Adam Brooks', Jennifer Flackett's and Mark Levin's well-crafted script. Virtually every key scene flexes such wonderfully wry humour that a paying audience can't help but be completely entertained, as well as becoming totally captivated by cinematographer Darius Khondji's often times stunning camerawork during the actual, on location - albeit, reportedly heavily computer-enhanced - matches brilliantly edited by Humphrey Dixon. Awesome. Admittedly, I really wasn't impressed with the ads and movie trailers for this one, and actually expected to fall asleep before the second reel, so I can honestly say that I'm glad my initial dread going in was quickly replaced with absolute enjoyment during this hundred and eleven-minute screening.

Definitely check out 'Wimbledon' as a truly worthwhile, decidedly mature date flick rife with great laughs and incredibly satisfying performances from this capable troupe of talent.

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What Remains of Us
REVIEWED 12/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

During four long-distance journeys taken - we're told - between 1996 and 2004, co-writers/cinematographers/directors François Prévost and Hugo Latulippe accompanied a young Mrs. Kalsang Dolma into the heart of Tibet to bring a message of hope. Born of Tibetan origin in a refugee camp in Hansur, India in the early 1970's, and having immigrated to Canada fourteen years later to join her father in Montreal, Dolma's recent trips would begin with and continue as her first actual experiences of her ancestral homeland - as a criminal in the eyes of the People's Republic of China. See, the message of hope that this unimposing tourist smuggled into that remote and rugged mountainous land were the words of Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama - in the form of a five-minute video recording kept in a portable DVD player hidden in her knapsack - where the slightest suspicion of allegiance to that political and religious leader's forty-four year Buddhist government-in-exile means summary incarceration dictated by Beijing. Surprisingly, Kalsang is able to find Tibetan city dwellers, Tibetan yak herders, Tibetan students and Tibetan townsfolk who welcome this crew into their modest homes and are willing to express their oftentimes emotionally heartfelt sentiments after witnessing the Dalai Lama's message of continued non-violent resistance to this Communist regime.

While sitting through this predominantly intriguing yet slightly meandering seventy-seven minute, National Film Board co-produced documentary, a few questions almost immediately came to mind. Who is Kalsang Dolma? Even though it's widely known that the Dalai Lama's eldest sister was India's Tibetan Children's Villages' founder Tsering Dolma (1920-1964), you're never told if Kalsang is a relative or not. Among thousands of Tibetan refugees and ex-patriots, how was she able to secure this message? Was it intentionally created to be shown inside Tibet? Even a well known celebrity would have at least cited their connection to this cause, showing you what it took to have this recording made. She just decided to do it, she says. DVD's from the Dalai Lama simply materialize, I guess. There's a lot of that evasiveness throughout this otherwise worthy offering, where a paying audience gets the unsettling sense that what's not being said is almost as important as what is. It's never explained that Tibet was itself a warring nation that invaded neighbouring India, Nepal, and China while adopting Buddhism beginning in the 8th Century. You're never told that the conquering Mongols were the first to officially empower and entitle the Dalai Lamas, back in the 13th Century, or that Tibet was occupied for a short time by the British, beginning in 1904. The history of Tibet, according to Prévost's and Latulippe's script, began with oppression resulting from the brutal defeat of its eight thousand soldiers and militia by a Chinese army of forty thousand in 1950 - when Gyatso was sixteen years old - leading to a massive exodus of Tibetans into India and the systematic eradication through sterilization and absorbsion of Tibetan language and culture that remains prevalent today. Omissions throughout make the source suspect, slightly detracting your attention from its important message. Frankly, it's rather ironic that Canadians - one of whom is reportedly a doctor practicing in Inuit regions - would make this film, considering that Canada's own scarred history of similar ethnic cleansing, heritage destroying land grabs still strongly resonates in every province and territory. Sure, this cinematic offering does feature some extremely powerful footage of a people orphaned from their past and quietly inspired to seek hope. In Tibet, I mean. Their obvious fear and simple honesty does grab you, and makes you empathize with a plight that they don't seem to fully understand. How what is happening in Tibet is clearly wrong, if this documentary has been based in fact. What is happening in Tibet as presented here feels heavily filtered through anti-Chinese rhetoric that's surprisingly unfocused. The basically defeatist attitude of Dolma's narrative throughout gives no real solutions to the problems shown, nor instills any tangible guidance for those leaving the security guarded theatre afterwards willing to do something for this region of steadily dwindling, unwilling martyrs. They're vanishing, nobody's stopping it, thanks for watching. That's where this selectively informative feature tends to feel rather empty, unfortunately.

Due to the nature of its content and the efforts to protect those interviewed resulting in mild audience security checks and minimal copies being distributed, there's little possibility of 'What Remains of Us' - or its French version 'Ce qu'il reste de nous' - ever being given a wider theatrical release than exists now, and it's unlikely to appear on television or at your local rental store as is, but it's certainly worth a look as a primer-like catalyst for budding activists and political gadflies willing to do further research towards possibly taking action afterwards.

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White Noise
REVIEWED 01/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Rivers + Roe Architects senior partner Jonathan Rivers' (Michael Keaton; 'Night Shift' (1982), 'First Daughter' (2004)) successful life couldn't be better. He, his ex-wife Jane (Sarah Strange) and their young son Michael (Nicholas Elia) all get along famously together and with Jonathan's adoring new wife - acclaimed novelist Anna Rivers (Edmonton's Chandra West; 'Puppet Master 4' (1993), 'The Salton Sea' (2002)) - set to launch her latest book, The Eternal Wait. The flowers and fine chocolates that he brings home are for more than just celebrating their excitement over that, though. Anna told him that Monday morning that she's pregnant with their first child. Elated, Jon can't wait for her to walk through their comfortably decorated house's front door. However, as the long hours tick into the dead of night on their strangely foreboding kitchen clock, he soon desperately tries to suppress mounting concerns about Anna's lateness by listening to their suddenly malfunctioning radio. Anna's Volkswagen Beetle would later be found by police, empty, with a punctured tire, on a lonesome riverside stretch of road. Emotionally destroyed by her disappearance, he's then suddenly rattled when twelve-year Electronic Voice Phenomena hobbyist Raymond Price (Ian McNeice; 'Year of the Comet' (1992), 'Around the World in 80 Days' (2004)) informs an angered and skeptical Rivers that Anna has been sending him brief, recorded messages from beyond the grave. Three torturous weeks later, her broken corpse would be discovered washed ashore near a crumbling abandoned factory at the edge of town. Devastating. Six months of grief and a move to his and Michael's new second floor apartment pass before the phone calls begin. Eerie sounds of static rasping from his cell's receiver - the first one happening at work during a weird freight elevator break down - all apparently coming from Anna's dead mobile phone that's still kept in the evidence bag forgotten within Jon's bedroom dresser drawer. Sending him confused and slightly frightened to Price's house for some semblance of rational explanation, and quickly plunging Jonathan into an horrific race against time as he realizes that not everything coming through from the other side is benevolent - or, merely the comforting voices of lost loved ones...

Frankly, I was fairly skeptical when I saw that the trailer for this movie had more to do with explaining the somewhat interesting study of Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP, than telling moviegoers about the flick itself - a bad omen that the studio has released a cinematic turkey to stink up a darkened theatre of unsuspecting ticket holders. Not to be confused with occult divination, or with Instrumental Transcommunication - telephonic real time contact with the afterlife reportedly pursued by famed phonograph inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) in the 1920's, and later developed into four working prototypes called Spiricom by researchers George (c.1920's-1999) and Jeanette (c.1920's-1990) Meek, medium William O'Neil, and (it seems) the spirit of engineering and mathematics professor Dr George Jeffries Mueller (1906-1967) collectively in the late Seventies and early Eighties - EVP apparently has a history that's older than Edison's first 19th Century audio recordings. It's studied through playing back magnetic tape or digital images for normally indecipherable ethereal voices or faces respectively, notably championed by Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication With The Dead (1971) Latvian novelist and psychologist Dr Konstantin Raudive (1909-1974), Voice Transmissions With The Deceased (1981) Swedish writer and opera singer Friedrich '1485.0 kHz' Jürgenson (1903-1987), Italian scientists Roberto Benzi, Alfonso Sutera and Angelo Vulpiani who discovered in 1982 that an exact level of stochastic resonance - or, white noise - offered researchers better results, and by American Association for Electronic Voice Phenomena directors Tom and Lisa Butler who said in a recent press junket interview session organized for this feature, posted on Horror.com by writer Staci Layne Wilson, "We know that (spirits are) transfiguring available sound... The voice is formed out of available noise." If you're interested, check out The International Ghost Hunters Society's EVP page at http://photos2.ghostweb.com/evp.html for loads of wav samples. Despite all of that intriguing spooky background, and aside from the irony of 'Beetle Juice's Keaton starring as a guy urged towards paranormal heroics while haunted by malevolent phantoms running amuck, 'White Noise' is still an unremarkable stinker. The ads are actually better than the movie itself. It's as though Brit television director Geoffrey Sax ('Lovejoy' (1986), 'Doctor Who: The Movie' (1996)) and screenwriter Niall Johnson wanted Sax's big screen debut to be a dismally plodding and overtly boring, formulaic mess of borrowed elements seen in 'Poltergeist' (1982), Wes Craven's 'Shocker' (1989), 'Ghost' (1990), 'The Ring' (2002) and 'Cellular' (2004), instead of taking five more minutes to easily develop a freshly compelling story from actual documented material on EVP for an uninitiated paying audience of this genre's fans. Even within the scheme of what plays out, this teeth-grating ninety-eight minute screening of dead air doesn't push its jumble of ideas far enough, heavily relying on outrageously amateurish special effects and a poorly explained plot, all culminating in an incredibly silly climax that's badly edited by Nick Arthurs. It's also a complete mystery why Vancouver's Deborah Kara Unger's ('The Game' (1997), 'Thirteen' (2003)) talent is summarily wasted as Rivers' like-minded confidant and vague love interest Sarah Tate and (I guess) a dubious homage to AAEVP founder Sarah Estep, unless quota casting in lieu of government grants was needed for this Canada-US-UK co-production to be made. They shouldn't have bothered.

Not meaning to attract the ire of - or angry visitations and phone calls from - any disembodied or afterlife movie fans with my review in any way ('cause you gotta know they'll likely read this too), 'White Noise' is awfully lame and terribly disappointing.

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The Woodsman
REVIEWED 01/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

"Do you believe in fairy tales?" Police Detective Sergeant Lucas' (Mos Def; 'Monster's Ball' (2001), 'The Italian Job' (2003)) cold eyes stab at Walter Rossbrook (Kevin Bacon; 'Apollo 13' (1995), 'Mystic River' (2003)) through the pale sunlight slowly ebbing into that small Philadelphia apartment. "What's that one," this tough cop continues, already knowing the answer before asking the question. Already knowing how it fits in with this latest, informal session of intimidating interrogation. Wishing for this slouching, miserable waste of skin quietly sitting across from him to give any reason to slam a bullet into his grey brain. "Y'know, the one where the Woodsman cuts open the wolf, and the little girl comes out unhurt?" Twelve years in prison isn't nearly enough payment from this sick forty-five year-old parolee. This diseased piece of incarcerated human garbage let back out on his streets. This pedophile. It doesn't matter that Walter says he never hurt any of those little girls he seduced. It doesn't matter that he wants to get better. To be normal, despite his mind being crippled with remorse and self-loathing. Or, that he's trying to reconnect with his brother-in-law Carlos (Benjamin Bratt; 'Miss Congeniality' (2000), 'Abandon' (2002)) and Walter's estranged sister. It doesn't matter that he's writing down his tortured thoughts in a journal, just like Dr. Rosen (Michael Shannon) insisted during one of their weekly meetings. Writing about what's going on in his life now, towards some semblance of healing. About Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick; 'Phenomenon' (1996), 'Secondhand Lions' (2003)), Walter's new girlfriend - maybe still his girlfriend - even after he uneasily confides to her about the past. After she then shares traumatic revelations of her own. He also writes about the guy he calls 'Candy' (Kevin Rice), that Walter recognizes as a sexual predator hanging around the public school playground's chain link gate, three hundred and twenty counted footsteps across the street from Rossbrook's window. None of it matters. Lucas knows that he didn't get off the bus at his usual stop after work at the lumberyard. Lucas knows about the eleven year-old in the hooded red coat. In the city park, on that autumn afternoon. Her alone with Walter. Him standing too close to her. Like with the other ones. As far as Lucas is concerned, it's only a matter of time before Walter reoffends. Cutting off this uninvited visit by lamenting, "There are no Woodsmen anymore."

Wow. Apparently, first time co-writer/director Nicole Kassell initially approached Manhattan playwright Steven Fechter about this astounding stage to screen adaptation while she was still a graduating film student at NYU, after seeing Fechter's surprisingly comedic play reportedly produced by legend Arthur Miller and starring actor Bernie Sheredy at The Actors Studio (yeah, that one) Free Theatre in 2000. Collaboratively reworked over the next three years, and then finally making it to the big screen, 'The Woodsman' is an incredibly captivating examination of this understandably banished and hated pariah. Everything seamlessly clicks into place. Bacon is absolutely brilliant here, masterfully victimizing his character not so much in order to encourage empathy from a paying audience, but to present Rossbrook as an unforgiven man wrestling with his demons while not wanting to reoffend. He's shown as how one might want to see someone who's committed these terrible crimes. You're not supposed to forget about the damage that this guy's done. However, Kassell's and Fechter's screenplay certainly nudges you into hoping that Lucas is wrong. That, at some point, even the most wretched of offenders need a break from continued punishment, for a chance to change for the betterment of themselves and society in a civilized contemporary world. Without my giving away too much, this powerful story truly succeeds on all fronts. Mainly because all of the supporting characters are carefully given decidedly different, easily believable viewpoints regarding this contentious issue. They effect what happens here. Fear and trauma are tangible forces played out extraordinarily well. Both negatively, and positively. Sure, anyone outraged or disgusted by the mere mention of child abuse will likely shun this picture on principle. I probably would have passed on checking it out otherwise, personally dreading the thought of having to sit through some expectedly gut-churning stuff. The dialogue is unflinchingly disturbing at times, and there are a couple of scenes featuring explicit sexuality between consenting adults. However, 'The Woodsman' feels more like it comes from the same fresh, insightful well as the extremely worthwhile 'One Hour Photo' (2002) than that of 'Lolita' (1962) for the most part. Little is left to a ticket holder's imagination during this tight eighty-seven minute screening, deftly using your preconceptions while keeping the story on a specific track. So that your cautious patience is definitely rewarded by its thoroughly smart writing, and by this cast's wonderfully stark performances throughout. Awesome.

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The Wedding Date
REVIEWED 02/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Under a cloud of tumbling rose petals and pastel confetti, Virgin Airlines Customer Service Operator Katherine 'Kat' Ellis' (Debra Messing; 'A Walk in the Clouds' (1995), 'The Mothman Prophecies' (2002)) otherwise simple life as the single older sister was thrown into complete chaos when the embossed wedding invitation arrived at her Manhattan apartment's door from England. Each ornately scripted word on it spelled out her parent's joyous relief that Kat's young sister Amy (Amy Adams; 'Catch Me If You Can' (2002)) had successfully found a man - and, by insinuation, those same printed words were like small swirling instruments of pointed torture, reminding Kat that she had failed to move on from her own disastrous seven-year relationship with Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield; 'Anna Karenina' (1997)) to do the same since last seeing her family two years ago. Worse still, the groom-to-be Edward Fletcher-Wooten (Jack Davenport; 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' (2003)) had chosen Jeffrey to be his Best Man. It was only right that Kat should go, but she couldn't show up alone. So, inspired by a carefully clipped out, insightful New York Times magazine article about male escorts, she gave up frantically scouring the grim classifieds dating scene, pulled herself together and made a few phone calls, took stock of her finances and then hired the professional interviewed in that piece to be her boyfriend for the occasion. Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney; 'My Best Friend's Wedding' (1997), 'About Schmidt' (2002)) was intrigued. This client who'd called him out of the blue was willing to pay him six thousand dollars cash to not only pretend that they were a couple for the weekend, but she was also willing to supply him with a first class overseas plane ticket as part of the deal. An intriguing woman with a fascinating challenge. They'd actually have to meet for the first time on the Boeing 747 destined for Heathrow, because time was so impossibly short. Amused, how could Nick refuse? However, Ellis' plan to make Jeffrey miserably jealous of her new man Nick slowly begins to unravel as soon as they join her sister's rowdy, marathon wedding reception, and Kat realizes that she still has feelings for her ex. Jeffrey also realizes just how much he's lost since breaking up with Kat, but not necessarily in the same way Kat feels, turning Mercer's role into something far more complicated than what he'd first expected.

Loosely based on writer Elizabeth Young's 2001, Bridget Jones-like book, Asking for Trouble: A Novel, this fairly fluffy chick flick is surprisingly entertaining and funny. Messing essentially nails her starring, stereo typically neurotic girl-next-door role with adept comedic timing and streamlined dramatic composure throughout, giving a paying audience someone that you can easily empathize with and follow along through her self-made awkward trials and outwardly created tribulations. She's the modern Every Girl here, that many single Thirty-something women probably see themselves as being or can relate to. Mulroney also does a good job fitting into his somewhat low key character, basically playing a slightly more mysterious and debonair version of his role in 'My Best Friend's Wedding' for the most part. You never really know what he's thinking, even though the sparks of romance do begin to fly between Nick and Kat as their banter softens and the mood set by Dana Fox's screenplay is allowed to envelope them. That's where 'The Wedding Date' mostly succeeds. In its writing. It seems pretty obvious that Messing and Mulroney are the perfect choices, but it's also clear that pretty well anyone with enough big screen chops could have stepped into most of the supporting characters. Simply because the script is so well crafted, despite it feeling a lot like a gender reversal of 'Pretty Woman' (1990) in premise. Most of the work is already done for these actors through their lines, making this ninety-minute offering a fun, if not purely memorable time. Sarah Parish is about the only stand out sideline player who continually catches your attention with her impressively natural screen presence, as Kat's wonderfully extroverted and slightly bawdy Brit cousin TJ. Yes, the physical laughs could have easily been pushed further towards this offering from director Clare Kilner ('How to Deal' (2003)) becoming a thoroughly hilarious screwball comedy, and the cinematography does feel mediocre over-all at best, but it's still an enjoyably soft piece of celluloid bubble gum that doesn't leave a sour aftertaste for the incurably romantic come the closing credits. Check it out as a worthwhile date movie, or simply rent this one as a feel good comedy of luke warm errors and minor nudity if you're tired of extreme humour and outrageous reality television.

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Waqt
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Twenty-seven years of unbridled doting by lovable Bombay toy maker and gentleman mango farmer Ishwar Sharawat (Amitabh Bachchan; 'Veer-Zaara' (2004), 'Black' (2005)) must come to an end, if his wife Sumitra's (Shefali Shetty) sincere words of common sense can finally penetrate Ishwar's stubborn adoration of their pampered adult son Aditya (Akshay Kumar; 'Ajnabee' (2001), 'Bewafaa' (2005)). This young man needs to step out of this safe bubble of carefree fun and exorbitant financial dalliances, and start taking responsibility for his life beyond merely preening himself as an aspiring actor with a head full of dreams. The truth is heartbreaking to Ishwar, who has vicariously gained a second lease on youth through being more of a friend than a father to Aditya over the years. He doesn't see why his handsome only child should suffer the indignities of desperately scratching out a meager living with little more than thirty-five rupees in his pocket like Ishwar did at that age. Ishwar has made a resounding success in building toys for children all over the world, so why shouldn't his boy reap the benefits of that hard work as well? Of course it's upsetting that Aditya bypassed all parental authority by secretly marrying his equally pampered girlfriend Pooja (former Miss India and Miss World 2000, Priyanka Chopra; 'Aitraaz' (2004)) - the daughter of Ishwar's annoying rival Nathu - but, how could he not be completely forgiven in this safe, palatial manor of long-standing unconditional love? However, when a silly game of traded places turns into a sharp thorn of discontent between father and son, Ishwar is left with no alternative but to heed Sumitra's pleas of tough love, and summarily throws this young couple out of his home in the hopes that Aditya will finally grow up and become the man he should be to his now-pregnant wife.

According to the Internet Movie Database, legendary East Indian powerhouse Amitabh Bachchan is slated to appear in eleven Bollywood movies in 2005, with director Vipul Amrutlal Shah's 'Waqt: The Race Against Time' (its full title) being his second big screen performance for this year to hit Canada. Unfortunately, this three-hour subtitled effort relentlessly wallows in an astounding amount of soapy sappiness throughout. It's clear that few other Hindi actors could bring the required strength of paternal-like screen presence for Kumar to work opposite, but Aatish Kapadia's screenplay is so agonizingly pedantic and rife with poorly realized scenes that a paying audience can't help but feel as though this cinematic disaster's story was cobbled together minutes before the cameras rolled. Sure, a lot of my aggravation stems from having to sit through watching grown men burst into wimpy tears over several turns of events that should have inspired electrified rage and jagged arguments, but that's really my point. None of these characters are pushed to the level of this cast's otherwise proven abilities on-screen, beyond the handful of sometimes extravagantly captivating dance numbers wonderfully matched by its roster of truly contagious songs. Shah nailed the Masala aspect of this movie dead on, several times, but seemed to be quite content in letting the remaining majority of it continually splutter in a quagmire of boring dialogue and unconvincing pretense. Even the oftentimes hilarious banter between the family's dim-witted manservant Laxman and anyone who comes too close to him isn't enough to keep what little momentum there is from losing steam in a big hurry. To the point where the tragic medical crisis that strikes and then worsens in hour three doesn't really lend much in comparison to what could have been accomplished if Kapadia had taken the time to seriously flesh out these characters to begin with. I truly hate panning this one, because it's clear that Bachchan and Kumar desperately tried to squeeze as much as possible out of what they were given to work with. But, I can't really recommend bothering to spend any time with it, unless you love dragged out Soap Operas featuring weepy big babies and don't mind sitting through surprisingly mediocre acting from a crew that should know better. Disappointing.

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The World
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Welcome to the World Park. Set beside a pristine lake 16 kilometres from the centre of Beijing, China, this favourite tourist attraction of perfectly detailed, scaled down miniatures features over 100 famous landmarks and 100 renowned sculptures from 14 different countries. See the Manhattan skyline, London Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt among several other architectural sights. All built to one-third their original size, all in one place. Take a pleasant monorail ride through the park and travel through Italy, France, China and America without leaving your seat. See the dazzling evening show in the modern pavilion, where traditional costumes are showcased in a musical cavalcade of light and colour. Tao Zhao (Tao Zhao) hears the same recorded advertising every day as one of the show girls at the park. People come and go, taking the same posed photographs under the watchful eye of security, but she's more like a ghost just going through the motions. Taisheng Chen (Taisheng Chen), the supervisor of the guards at the park, is Tao's boyfriend. He's also involved in supplying counterfeit passports to his gang contact Song. The park feels like a macabre display case, where its employees are nothing more than brightly adorned zoo animals, but its a job that saves them from going back to their poor villages. So, they stay and endure their phony lives in this fake garden of delights. However, life becomes complicated when Taisheng is asked by his underworld colleague to chaperone Qun - a sweatshop designer who forges foreign fashion for the local market - to another district, and he falls for her during their six-hour bus ride. He's careful to cover up the romantic messages she leaves on his cel phone, but Tao suspects something is wrong. It's hard for her to articulate her feelings - and even harder for her to express them to her new Russian friend and similarly stranded co-worker Anna, because of the language barrier - so she keeps things bottled up, and maintains an outwardly happy glow while steadily feeling hollow and lost.

Unfortunately, most of this Communist Government-sanctioned, subtitled 2004 film from writer/director Zhang Ke Jia was completely lost on me. Vaguely presented as a series of fictional dramatic vignettes that attempt to examine what appears to be the corruption and moral decay of Westernized Chinese youth in contemporary society, 'Shijie' (its original title) quickly becomes a disastrously boring quagmire rife with excruciatingly amateurish acting burdened by Jing Lei Kong's unsure film editing throughout. I honestly wanted to like what plays out, having heard some fairly high-minded opinions about this flick, but you really are forced to squeeze out intellectual meaning from each supposedly important scene - much like painfully trying to appreciate a piece of renowned artwork that looks to you like it's a discarded paint rag or a pile of cast-offs mistakenly displayed in the National Gallery. The Coles Notes people should have been called in, frankly. Yes, a lot of cinematographer Nelson Yu Lik-wai's camera work is sporadically captivating from a technical standpoint, where different styles of capturing each story under predominantly dim available light is sometimes fascinating to sit through. There's a specific moment, deep into this otherwise monotonous hundred and forty-three minute screening, where the camera slowly pans from one actor to the other in a narrow hospital corridor, that truly is photographically mesmerizing. But, these few superior glimpses of inspired vision really aren't enough to save 'The World' from ultimately becoming little more than an unintentionally inaccessible cinematic sleeping pill. Which is a shame, because it's clear that Zhang was trying to draw comparisons between the perfect order of this theme park's artificial landscape and the grittier, unfair reality poisoning the lives of those who work there. It simply doesn't work. More time developing a stronger script with better dialogue, and less reliance on moviegoers needing to continually read between the lines, probably would have helped. I'd be more inclined to suggest that you read some of the interesting, positive critical interpretations of this movie as an alternative source of entertainment, rather than encourage you to buy a ticket and deliberately put yourself through the agony of actually watching it.

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War of the Worlds
REVIEWED 07/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Selfish, unreliable, and completely disinterested in working another shift on short notice after pulling a double on a Friday at his shipyard job loading containers from high above all worldly troubles, Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) just needs some sleep. He's been running on empty for hours. He can barely keep up with his teenaged son Robbie (BC's Justin Chatwin; 'Taking Lives' (2004)), let alone stay lucid enough to protect his daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning). She's so filled with questions for an eight year-old. Ray hardly has any answers for her. It all happened so fast. Without warning. The weird electrical storm that boiled overhead, inhaling the wind into its swirling mass and pounding thunderless lightening deep into the ground. Hitting the same spots. Lightening doesn't do that, does it? Ray vaguely remembers overhearing something like that happening, in the Ukraine maybe, on the TV news, before Rachel switched over to cartoons. Before the power grid winked out and all of the cars stopped dead. That's how They must have taken us all by surprise. Through the storm. These invaders, what ever They are. Where ever They come from, it isn't from here. The way that massive machine - that red, metallic animal skull thing on three huge legs - heaved and ripped itself out from under the street like that, They can't be from Earth. The buildings just shattered. They just crumpled over like there was nothing holding them up anymore. Like an earthquake had hit. Like the whole place was going to Hell. And then, the lasers started. Ray can't remember if there was that horrible fog horn noise before the lasers started cutting through everything, but when the lasers started, God, nobody stood a chance. It was mass panic. People running everywhere, screaming. Crying. Insane. People getting hit by the lasers, bursting into ash. We were easy target practice for Them. It was a massacre. Something an eight year-old little girl shouldn't have to see. None of it. Luckily, Rachel and Robbie were at Ray's place at the time. The worst they saw was the stuff - the ash - all over him when he came back for them. Gotta hurry. Too many questions and not enough time for answers. There are no answers. Just keep running. Luckily, Manny did what Ray told him to do about fixing this van's broken engine, before Manny got hit by the lasers. This van saved them from Them, what ever the hell They are. It got them through the jam up of dead cars on the highway. Through the people milling around, too confused to figure out that running away might save them from Them and the lasers. The van got them to Ray's ex-wife Mary Ann's (Miranda Otto) house by nightfall. The power was still working there. She and her husband Tim had already headed to her parents' place in Boston for the weekend. Ray wondered if They'd hit Boston yet. The CBS reporter showed him videotape of a bunch of those machines tearing through a city, but he can't remember if she mentioned Boston. They're everywhere. Them. Unstoppable. They're taking over. Killing us all.

Yes, The Summer of the Remake Machine steamrollers on. However, before I get started, I'm going to pass along a couple of website addresses that seem almost immediately relevant to this oftentimes stunning horror. The first site features the complete text of former teacher and prolific British science fiction visionary Herbert George 'H.G.' Wells' (1866-1946) classic 1898 novel set in the outskirts of London, England, found at The Gutenberg Project's text-based library (www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/36/36-h/36-h.htm) and the second is The Mercury Theatre's online listing (www.mercurytheatre.info/), where you can find audio links to CBS Radio's infamous fifty-minute, October 30, 1938 live broadcast adaptation - reportedly written by Howard Koch with Wells' input and reset in Grover's Mill, New Jersey - starring cinema legend Orson Welles (1915-1985). They, along with Hollywood's famous Oscar-winning 1953 movie in which much of Wells' invaders from Mars story is revamped with part eerie/part cheesy special effects for a post-WWII generation, collectively inspire director Steven Spielberg's ('Catch Me If You Can' (2002), 'The Terminal' (2004)) gritty and truly contemporary, post-9/11 tinged shocker here. This new 'War of the Worlds' masterfully retools and elaborates upon all three namesakes mentioned above, with visually obvious occasional nods to 'The Abyss' (1989), 'Independence Day' (1996), 'Starship Troopers' (1997) and 'Signs' (2002), as a brutally shell shocked big screen antithesis of Spielberg's memorably pro-interplanetary visitor flicks, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (1977) and 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' (1982). These aliens don't need no stinking Reese's Pieces. However, what makes this hundred and sixteen-minute screening so captivating for a mature paying audience is that co-writers Josh Friedman's and David Koepp's screenplay creates realistic enough characters whose strained interactions could easily stand on their own, beyond the backdrop of those marauding CGI tripods scorching the Earth with merciless death from above. Tom Cruise ('Top Gun' (1986), 'Collateral' (2004)), along with Dakota Fanning ('Man on Fire' (2004), 'Hide and Seek' (2005)) and Tim Robbins ('The Shawshank Redemption' (1994), 'Mystic River' (2003)) as the crazy-eyed Harlan Ogilvy, beautifully realize their powerfully dramatic roles with astounding depth and intelligent development not often seen in Sci-Fi. They're all coming from points of failure and desperation, but individually react differently to the increasing panic and madness that erupts around them. The arc that Cruise's Ray Ferrier takes is absolutely mesmerizing, and its intriguing to see how each plot twist inspires him towards uncanny heroics. At the same time, surprisingly glaring problems such as minor inconsistencies apparently caused by careless artistic license, its fairly unimpressive Martian antagonists that suspiciously resemble Pilot from television's 'Farscape', as well as Morgan Freeman's awkwardly old fashioned narrative bookends paraphrased from the novel do deflate this tale's effectiveness as a completely successful masterpiece.

One of two direct-to-video adaptations from other studios released this year reportedly remains more faithful to Wells' original, but this delightfully grim actioner is definitely well worth checking out on the big screen for its capable main cast of proven talent and its incredibly astounding effects.

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Wedding Crashers
REVIEWED 07/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

She was a dirty blonde. Maybe a dyed brunette. Gorgeous beyond belief, even as she stormed from successful Washington, D.C. divorce mediator John Beckwith's (Owen Wilson) bed. The moment was gone before anything had happened. Sure, he had deftly picked her from the hallowed halls of matrimony and had cleverly charmed her at the wedding reception earlier that day. Twelve years at it had made him good at that. Smooth and natural. Using the legendary Chazz Reinhold's (Will Ferrell; 'Zoolander' (2001), 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' (2004)) tried and true rules of seduction learned through his business partner and fellow womanizer Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn), beguiling these potential conquests had become second nature to him. It was a game, where the ultimate trophy was sex with various bridesmaids rapt in the romance of soul mate vows and dreams of finding true love for themselves over drinks and the music and casually flirtatious laughs. However, after enjoying a dozen summers worth of exploiting the softly perfumed excitement of Wedding Season as one of Cupid's little devils, Beckwith realized that he needed more. This recent, eventually gruelling round of seventeen weddings that he and Grey had cruised under various pseudonyms over the past few weeks had thankfully ended with that gorgeous, dissatisfied, dirty blonde or dyed brunette. What was her name again...? The tight ropes bit into Jeremy's wrists and ankles, trapping him splayed open and helpless within the strange bed in Secretary of the US Treasury William Cleary's (Christopher Walken) darkened palatial manor's guest room. This wasn't part of the game plan. He would have remembered. He and John had been a formidable duo of ultra suave and debonair, skirt chasing hound dogs during this past Wedding Season, but they couldn't pass up crashing the Kentucky Derby of love craved debutantes ripe for the plucking that the eldest Cleary daughter's highly publicized marriage had offered them. Walking in with little more than their tuxedos and some made up story, surveying the landscape of perky nubile beauties and sniffing out a voluptuous doe-eyed prey to seduce and bed and release was all too easy - despite John's mopey scepticism. However, Jeremy had made a fatal error in picking out Cleary's auburn haired youngest daughter Gloria (Isla Fisher): A stage five virgin clinger he'd snared on the beach near that posh reception afterwards. Grey distinctly remembers wanting to beat a hasty retreat, but John had suddenly wanted to spend more time with Claire (London, Ontario's Rachel McAdams; 'The Hot Chick' (2002), 'The Notebook' (2004)), Gloria's older sister, dragging him to this rambling mansion to end up beaten senseless by Claire's psychotic boyfriend Sack (Bradley Cooper) and then mercilessly groped into sleep depriving submission by Gloria. If he could get out of these ropes, and if he was someplace completely different, miles away, say, on a psychiatrist's couch, Jeremy would probably be laughing about it instead of worrying about the strange person in his closet, and Secretary Cleary sitting on the edge of his bed while his wife Kathleen (Jane Seymour) is apparently going around making people play with her fake boobs...

Over-all hilariously depraved man-child hijinx proliferate this surprisingly disjointed offering from director David Dobkin ('Clay Pigeons' (1998), 'Shanghai Knights' (2003)). It can't decide if it wants to be a relentlessly bizarre sex farce or a romantic comedy of errors drama, and ends up playing out as though two different movies - one that slaps at your funny bone, and one that tugs at your heartstrings - are vying for your attention, cancelling out each other in the long run. It runs hot and cold. On the one hand, you have swaggering and irreverent Washington, D.C. divorce mediators John Beckwith (Owen Wilson; 'Anaconda' (1997), 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou' (2004)) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn; 'Swingers' (1996), 'Starsky & Hutch' (2004)) infiltrating weddings with their shopping wish list of conquests, who then tenaciously apply their gregarious womanizing credo at the post-vow receptions. The funny stuff. On the other hand, you see Beckwith and Grey individually wrestling with heart felt bouts of conscience and their ineptly articulated feelings of friendship and mature love. Misplaced, frankly. Yes, Vaughn and Wilson pull out all of the stops here, as do brilliantly extraordinary scene stealers Isla Fisher ('Scooby-Doo' (2002), 'I Heart Huckabees' (2004)) as psycho nympho Gloria Cleary, and Bradley Cooper ('My Little Eye' (2002)) as intense antagonist Sack Lodge. It's also fun to see Christopher Walken ('The Deer Hunter' (1978), 'The Stepford Wives' (2004)) and TV's 'Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman' (1993-1998) star Jane Seymour ('Live and Let Die' (1973), 'Touching Wild Horses' (2002)) in the fray - if only to a lesser degree as effortlessly captivating props - but, the film as a whole doesn't really work. I kept being reminded of famed comedians Bud Abbott (1895-1974) and Lou Costello's (1906-1959) classic family friendly television clips versus some of their uncensored Las Vegas nightclub-style reels. Steve Faber's and Bob Fisher's screenplay suffers from the same paradox. The script ends up aimlessly contorting itself, punching out a wealth of over the top bawdy humour led by Vaughn's oftentimes delightfully lewd, suspiciously ad libbed monologues, bluntly interrupted by slothfully long, stagnating scenes where story and character development actually kill all hopes of enjoyably sustained pacing. It's as though Dobkin was afraid to lob a completely silly, caricature driven Screwball romp that obviously had enough potential to stand on its own - or, Vaughn's agent demanded more screen time for Babaganoush. Another origin of disappointment with this nudity-tinged, R-rated hundred and nineteen-minute screening does come from how it's been marketed as a kind of 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' (1986) meets 'Porky's' (1981) starring these middle aged toy boys inspired by 'American Pie' (1999) and 'EuroTrip' (2004). This cast clearly has a blast with those aspects and definitely manage to fulfil expectations whenever the film quits thinking above the waist. However, the promised mindlessly raunchy hilarity becomes aggravatingly sabotaged by its completely different level of soft, decidedly unfunny quirkiness during the scenes where Beckwith slides into straight man mode as this feature attempts to grow up and moralize his and Grey's wild oats shenanigans. To the point of boring a paying audience.

'Wedding Crashers' isn't a complete turkey, deftly managing to offer up loads of truly funny adult oriented moments throughout, but I'd be more inclined to recommend it as a second choice rental that you can fast forward through a lot of the disproportionately unfunny romantic comedy bits that tend to undermine its over-all momentum and memorably crude laughs.

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The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
REVIEWED 08/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

There's a certain endearing laid back quality to this 2004 documentary about contemporary San Franciscan 1970's throw back Bohemian, Buddhist and Amateur Birder Mark Bittner from environmentalist film maker Judy Irving that's undeniably captivating throughout. It's not just about the birds, even though a fair portion of this eighty-three minute urban nature flick definitely spotlights personably cheeky Mingus, wobbly yet cuddly Sophie, and a select few other predominant characters from this flock of forty-five cherry hooded conures - a small, green and red-coloured species of South American parrot - as well as Connor, a surprisingly complex blue hooded conure and one of four original birds that first accepted Bittner as their unofficial caretaker in the mid-Nineties. Inspired by his local newspaper articles and book, 'The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill' is really a mildly quirky and wonderfully insightful slice of life of the man himself. Irving opens up Bittner's simple yet borderline eccentric world for a paying audience, not so much to expose or even champion his calling, but simply to pay witness to this extraordinarily fascinating individual and his deeply felt bond with these mysteriously acclimatized, sporadically tame non-indigenous birds.

That's what makes this one a thoroughly enjoyable time at the movies, regardless of whether or not you're interested in sitting through shot after shot of birds eating and flying and preening and squawking. You see them through his eyes, captured with all of the emotion and pathos that you likely recall seeing in 'Birdman of Alcatraz' (1962) or 'Gorillas in the Mist' (1988), but without the Hollywood drama - or actors. Brilliant. Another nice detail about this project is that production house Pelican Media maintains a few pages at their website that are devoted to Bittner's continued ornithological study journals (www.pelicanmedia.org/wildparrots.html). However, this film does contain its fair share of aggravating flaws. Apart from a quick aside citing various and sometimes humourous urban legends regarding how these conures became free, Irving never bothers to investigate their origins in true photo-journalistic form. You see a glimpse of one caged and for sale in a pet store, but that industry is never really looked at as a relevant counter balance. And, then there are the somewhat cheapening sound and editing effects, where you hear a sharply-pitched screech straight out of a corny old Western whenever a hawk swoops overhead, and the movie jolts out blurry freeze frames when this crew curiously feels the need to punctuate an already relatively dynamic moment. All the same, despite those disappointing choices, 'The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill' truly is a marvelously enjoyable small treasure.

Definitely check it out on the big screen or if any wildlife related television channel airs it, for its interesting storytelling that wonderfully encapsulates humanity's relationship with nature.

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Where the Truth Lies
REVIEWED 10/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Well, that was a nice nap. Quite frankly, this curiously pornographic and wildly disjointed thriller from Canadian director Atom Egoyan ('The Sweet Hereafter' (1997), 'Ararat' (2002)) feels like an awkward attempt to remake any number of Silver Screen crime flicks inspired by or adapted from the pulp fiction novels of Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) throughout. It's actually based on Rupert Holmes' book. 'Where the Truth Lies' doesn't really succeed in captivating or sustaining a moviegoer's interest, beyond its lush Noir atmosphere and swelling soundtrack, though. Much of it seems superficial, as does the main story revolving around budding book writer Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman; 'White Oleander' (2002), 'Big Fish' (2003)) weeding out the facts involving a mysterious death that occurred fifteen years earlier in the palatial hotel suite of 1950's comedy duo Vince Collins (Colin Firth; 'Shakespeare in Love' (1998), 'Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason' (2004)) and Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon; 'Footloose' (1984), 'The Woodsman' (2004)).

The reason for its existence almost seems more about how far Egoyan can (again) push the ratings system, as though stuck in an adolescent fixation about titillating viewers from the waist down while wasting gobs of potential by not bothering to carefully tickle you from the neck up. Yawn. The primary flaw is that this exhausting hundred and eight-minute snooze fest is bloated with sometimes delightfully shot yet poorly edited flash backs, mercilessly tugging a paying audience between a Jerry Lewis-style two-man thirty-six hour live television Polio Telethon in 1957 as well as the lascivious events preceding and following it, and O'Connor's outrageously uninspired investigations and loping interview sessions with Collins and Morris in 1972. It's also badly constructed, with Lohman's laughably droning narrative and fairly exploitative lingering nude scene adding more aggravation to the mix than anything else. You're left barely caring about what happens, including the entire blackmail sub plot that ends up becoming crucial but plays out as unimaginative and anti-climactic. Sure, it's obvious why sex has an important role throughout - to set up one, uh, pivotal twist - but the so-called terrible secret at the core of this overwhelmingly bland amateur detective story is so incredibly clichéd and passé that you can almost hear a collective groan shudder from off-camera once all truths are finally revealed approximately an hour after you've figured it out. Aside from all of that, Firth and Bacon are wonderful here, deftly immersing themselves in their characters to wrestle some incredibly insightful scenes out of this prurient self-indulgent mess. They're not enough to save this turkey, but those moments are high points that clearly demonstrate these two actors' enormous capacity to examine and effortlessly present complex aspects of human frailty. Why Egoyan didn't choose to focus on their evolving, tumultuous story as the meat of his screenplay is anyone's guess, but 'Where the Truth Lies' sure suffers for it. Yawn.

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Wallace & Gromit
REVIEWED 10/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Reportedly taking six years to make, this delightfully charming CGI-enhanced clay animated comedy from creator/co-director Nick Park is a slightly soft yet hilariously corny and fun-filled romp throughout. Clay animation - also known by California Raisins television commercial wunderkind Will Vinton's trademarked name for it, "Claymation®" - celebrates a milestone in 2005 with the 50th anniversary of pioneer Art Clokey's original 1955 TV pilot for 'The Gumby Show' that you can watch a clip of online (www.premavision.com/studio/ movie_clips/diving.htm). The process itself is fascinating, primarily using miniature figures made out of Plasticine - the same famous sculpting material turned Kindergarten children's toy invented by Brit art teacher William Harbutt (1844-1921) in 1897 - painstakingly moved and shot a twitch at a time on scaled down sets much like with traditional stop motion animation seen in 'King Kong' (1933), 'Jason and the Argonauts' (1963), and 'Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas' (1993).

Past box office disasters, such as Saturday Night Live's big screen spin-off 'Mr. Bill's Real Life Adventures' (1986) and Clokey's 'Gumby: The Movie' (1995), seem to have sabotaged clay animation's foray into theatres, but 'Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit' (its complete title) pushes these two lovably quirky English caricatures to new heights, since last starring in the Ottawa International Animation Festival awarded and Oscar-winning short film 'Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave' (1995). This adventure pits Wallace (voiced by TV's 'The Ghosts of Motley Hall' (1976) co-star Peter Sallis; 'Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?' (1978)), Gromit, and their Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) inspired contraption laden Anti-Pesto Humane Pest Control service against a hideously hulking floppy-eared beastie that threatens to wipe out the town's prize vegetables slated to compete in the five hundredth and seventeenth annual grower's fair hosted by Tottingham Hall's Lady Campanula (ironically, voiced by Tim Burton's fiance, Helena Bonham Carter; 'Howards End' (1992), 'Corpse Bride' (2005)).

In many ways, it's a gentle parody of the Lon Chaney Jr. (1906-1971) classic 'The Wolf Man' (1941), with playful nods to any number of Horror and Fantasy movies, including Kong and the Harry Potter franchise. There's definitely a wealth of in-jokes to keep an eye out for, along with co-writers Bob Baker's and Steve Box's wry word play dabblings. Sure, there's also a lot of the same cheesy humour seen in their spacey debut 'Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out' (1989) and the penguin-hunting 'Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers' (1993), and longtime fans of comic strip legend Charles Schulz' (1922-2000) 'Peanuts' will notice obvious similarities between backyard tinkerer Wallace's brainier anthropomorphised dog Gromit and Charlie Brown's renowned beagle Snoopy - especially during the Red Baron-like dogfight near the end - but this eighty-five minute crowd pleaser is a pure joy for the entire family to marvel and laugh at. Plus, this screening offers up the enjoyably silly pre-show short 'A Christmas Caper', starring the New York Zoo's neurotic quartet of penguins Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Rico from this summer's wonderful computer animated movie 'Madagascar' (2005). Good stuff.

Absolutely check out this first 'Wallace & Gromit' feature as a superior example of well-scripted stop motion animation made for kids and kids at heart.

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The Weather Man
REVIEWED 10/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

It wasn't what WCH6 Chicago TV weather forecaster David Spritz (Nicolas Cage) had predicted. When he was younger, it seemed as though his life had been full of possibilities worth planning for. Aspirations, even though the type of person that he would be had narrowed down as time passed, until all that was left was the pathetic grey shadow that he had become in this rotten life that he now hated. His marriage is over. His ex-wife Noreen (Hope Davis; 'Flatliners' (1990), 'Proof' (2005)) politely loathes him. His kids, fifteen year-old rehab juvenile Michael (Nicholas Hoult; 'About a Boy' (2002)) and twelve year-old overweight loner Shelley (Gemmenne de la Peña; 'Erin Brockovich' (2000)), are emotionally lost and in trouble. David's father Robert (Michael Caine) has been diagnosed with terminal lymphoma. And, every couple of months, someone throws something at him. A McDonald's hot apple pie. A chocolate Frostee from Wendy's. A 7-11 Big Gulp. It had all gone wrong. David was convinced that he just needed a little more time to get his stuff together. To get that prized weather man spot on national television, and make enough money so that things would change. He would change. Noreen would want to patch up their marriage with him, and their kids would turn out all right. Everything would turn around. His life would fall into place. But, it's taking too damn long. Things were getting worse. Noreen now has a boyfriend, Russ, who keeps showing up and replacing him. Michael is finding a surrogate Dad in his creepy counsellor Dan. Shelley's started smoking, and just wants to kill small animals with a bow and arrow. And, Spritz's ailing father still won't cut him a break or treat him like an adult. He's forty, but can't seem to figure out what being a husband and father at forty years old means. He's as numb as his kids are. It's too difficult. Staying focussed is impossible when nothing turns out right. Things will turn out, though. He just needs to get that job...

This surprisingly flat comedy from acclaimed director Gore Verbinski ('The Ring' (2002), 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' (2003)) feels a lot like a page to screen adaptation that, unfortunately, probably should have stayed a book. Nicolas Cage ('Leaving Las Vegas' (1995), 'National Treasure' (2004)) is renowned for taking off beat roles. His starring character, Chicago's WCH6 TV weather forecaster David Spritz, definitely does fit the mould as being tormented by his disastrous personal life that he believes will all magically fall in line as soon as he wins a lucrative New York-based spot on the nationally televised morning show Hello America. Some of his fairly sparse internal monologue is wonderfully manic in a similar yet lighter tone than seen in 'Adaptation' (2003), and Verbinski's sporadic use of almost existential visual metaphors is absolutely brilliant, but they're really not enough to hold the entire movie together as a consistently captivating effort. This hundred and one-minute flick contains too much dead time, to the point of it actually getting boring during some of the scenes that a paying audience would rightly expect to play out much better. The main problem with 'The Weather Man' is that Steve Conrad's screenplay can't quite figure out how to make depression funny. So, it ends up being dark and morose as a character examination, after seeing the trailer that advertises it as being quirky and outlandishly wry - which it isn't. David's life is a wreck, but Cage chooses to play numb and introverted about this turmoil. Bad choice. The worst part is sitting through Michael Caine's ('The Man Who Would Be King' (1975), 'Batman Begins' (2005)) exasperatingly dull performance as Spritz's coldly judgmental and terminally diagnosed Pulitzer Prize-winning author father Robert. These are potentially hilarious and fascinating characters poorly realized throughout. And, that's a hugely disappointing shame, because they're both extremely talented and capable of great work that doesn't transpire here. This sad turkey is also disappointing because you can see the intelligence swirling around on the screen, aptly presenting these contemporary fictional people as being believable enough examples of today's adults, but they're not really given a fair share of substance or story to work with. So, this one ends up feeling like an exercise in cinematic sleep walking for the cast, while you hope that the decidedly mature script shakes off its doldrums and goes someplace before the closing credits. It doesn't really. Sure, there's a certain amount of character development and brief glimpses of truly superior acting, but the rewards for sitting through this predominantly bland film's majority of boring scenes aren't worth the patience.

The soft smile-and-wink pay off at the end definitely fails to offer up any lasting satisfaction. Yawn.

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Walk the Line
REVIEWED 11/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Owner and recording producer Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts) sat and frowned in the small studio at Sun Records the day that Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) and his band played a song for him. It was a favourite Gospel tune that Cash's mother had taught him, already played on the radio day after day, the same way by far more competent musicians, and Phillips told them to stop. "Is it the song, or the way we're playing it?" Johnny asked him. "Both," Sam replied, disappointed that his time was being wasted. "I don't believe you," he sharply told this young man curiously dressed in black. Well, Johnny took offense to that, thinking that Phillips was questioning his strong faith in the Almighty. That's what the song was about. That's what he'd nervously poured his Christian heart and soul into singing about for this audition. What the hell did he mean he didn't believe him? Johnny wanted to punch this guy in the nose. Phillips explained, and then asked him if they had anything else. Cash had been stationed overseas during the war in Korea, writing songs about the drudgery of his duties in Germany, and had suddenly recalled one of them that he'd never practiced with his accompanying players before setting up for Phillips' to hear. It was a lonely tune. Slow. Bitter. He strummed his guitar and the song poured out of him. "I hear the train a comin', it's rollin' 'round the bend." Sam listened and said nothing, as Johnny continued, unconsciously transforming into a contender. "But I shot a man in Reno," Cash's voice slightly wavered, "Just to watch him die." Folsom Prison Blues had launched what would quickly become the stratospheric legend of Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three, hitting the Billboard charts with their first hit single while they toured the South on Sun Records' Rockin' Railway of stars with Elvis and Jerry Lee and child performer turned soloist and emcee's second banana June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). "You're nothing," snapped the harsh voice of his hurtful father (Robert Patrick), robbing him of every accomplishment, forcing Johnny back into a fog of painful remorse that had haunted him since childhood.

Well, that was a nice nap. Almost. The saddest thing about this meandering and outrageously boring biopic covering the rise and fall and rise again of 1980 Country Music Hall of Fame and 1992 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee JR "Johnny" Cash (1932-2003) from co-writer/director James Mangold ('Girl, Interrupted' (1999), 'Identity' (2003)) is that you can clearly see a far better movie was aching to be realized but was instead completely overlooked in the final cut. Sure, Joaquin Phoenix ('Gladiator' (2000), 'Hotel Rwanda' (2004)) as Cash and Reese Witherspoon ('Pleasantville' (1998), 'Vanity Fair' (2004)) as longtime Country crooner since childhood June Carter (born Valerie June Carter (1929-2003)) do make a somewhat interesting couple who spend pretty well the entire movie avoiding becoming a couple, but it's not their acting that turns this hundred and thirty-five minuter into a tush numbing snooze fest. The performances are actually fairly good throughout, apparently thanks to what ever they brought to the set for their close-ups. Unfortunately, the film lacks any real originality or spark when it comes to cinematographer Phedon Papamichael's enormously lazy camera work sporadically bothering to fully capture what's going on. Cash was a human tornado in real life, but a paying audience wouldn't know it after sitting through this cinematic sleeping pill bloated with lame scenes and enormous amounts of Phoenix and Witherspoon impersonating those entertainers' singing voices on stage ad nauseum. 'Walk the Line', which slothfully traces bits of Cash's and Carter's early touring shows in the mid-1950's under the Sun Record label with Elvis Presley (1935-1977) and Jerry Lee Lewis (fabulously played by Waylon Payne) and later under Columbia Records, is primarily a road trip movie. So, a lot of performing in front of various audiences is expected. However, there's little else to sustain your interest here. The dialogue - such as it is - merely lurches into a series of contrived segueys back to the stage and another song. It's like watching an Elvis movie, produced by a teenaged suicide case. "You can't walk the line, " June scolds, followed by Johnny recording the title track, for instance. Yawn. If you're not a huge fan of Johnny Cash and his music, then you're out of luck waiting for an insightful screenplay to enjoy. It's certainly not as good as 'Ray' (2004) or the likes of 'Great Balls of Fire!' (1989). If you are a fan, you'll likely be left feeling that he's been insulted and that you've been left poorer for foolishly paying the price of admission. That's the second major flaw here. Mangold's and Gill Dennis' script contains little more than pedantic filler that could have easily been applied to any number of music stars: The tormented childhood. The unhappy marriage. The substance and alcohol abuse. The infidelity. There certainly must have been at least a half dozen anecdotes specific to Cash's turbulent life that were worth being included, but all seem to have fallen by the wayside in favour of a strange need to portray this legend amongst his contemporaries as a self destructive wimp with no real reason to live because his Dad never hugged him. Did they do any indepth research at all? What were some of the bad things Cash did that are continually referred to? You're never shown. And, that's an unforgivable shame.

Just buy the original records and read Cash: An Autobiography instead.

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