Funerals & Snakes

Let’s get the unpleasantness out of the way first: watching The Farrelly Brothers’ ugly remake of Neil Simon’s The Heartbreak Kid was a trial beyond all human endurance. After about 20 minutes I was begging for release (which came shortly afterwards as blissful unconsciousness overtook me). Sadly, no studio executive will ever get fired for green-lighting a racy Ben Stiller romantic comedy so no matter how bad this one is it won’t be the last one we are forced to endure.

Another pointer to the future of mainstream Hollywood (and considerably less depressing) is the bombastic 3D epic Beowulf, in which real actors like Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich are used as a base for computer animated performances which at times are eerily lifelike and at other times, well, not so much. Last year saw an entertaining low brow and low budget re-telling of the Beowulf legend and this version is similarly earthy but suffers from some clunky dialogue between the big set-pieces. But none of that is a reason for going: seeing the future of cinema is.

For the first time in Wellington a feature film is being screened in the new hi-resolution digital format: flicker, scratch and vibration free. I’m sure eventually some pimply nerd of a projectionist will work out how to play it out of focus but for the time being it is the state of the art and I am thrilled it’s here. In terms of 3D, I was a sceptic but now I am sold. With James Cameron shooting Avatar in 3D in Wellington at the moment and the Jackson/Spielberg Tintin due for 3D release in 2009 it seems like the technology and the art are coming together nicely. Ultimately Beowulf isn’t much of a film but then neither was The Jazz Singer and look what happened then.

As contrast to the exceptional digital presentation for Beowulf, The Dead Girl (screened from what looks like a DVD) is considerably sub-optimal. I’m not averse to DVD as a theatrical format, as I know sometimes 35mm prints are not available, but this screening (at The Empire) was very poor, making the wonderful Marcia Gay Harden at times look like Michael Jackson. The Dead Girl is a heavyweight drama about the various characters who are effected by a murder and the performances (from Toni Collette and Rose Byrne especially) are excellent but the relentlessness is debilitating.

Three sensitive films about trauma and recovery are screening in Wellington simultaneously at the moment. The Secret Life of Words is the best of them: it’s always a pleasure to discover that you’ve been watching something quite different to the film you thought you’d sat down to. This is a testament to Isabel Coixet’s subtly layered script and her patient direction, as well as Sarah Polley’s modest performance as Hannah, nursing Tim Robbins’ injured oil-rig worker after a tragic accident. It sounds more contrived than it actually is.

A little less substantial, but similarly affecting, is Bella about a young woman in New York (Nina, played by Tammy Blanchard) who makes the unwelcome discovery that she is pregnant. When her boss, Manny, fires her from her restaurant job Manny’s brother José the chef comes to her aid. For reasons that are more to do with his own guilt and pain he tries to help in the only we he can; by making a connection. And that is what both of these films are about, ultimately: the necessity of human connection in order for us to heal our lives.

It seems churlish to be too critical of a well-intentioned Holocaust memoir like Nina’s Journey. The tale of a young woman from Poland surviving the Warsaw Ghetto and eventually escaping to Sweden is obviously a labour of over for writer-director Lena Einhorn (who I’m guessing shares more than just a surname with protagonist and narrator Nina Einhorn) but a little more distance might have helped and the anaemic re-creations have the look of something you might see on the Discovery Channel.

Printed in Wellington‘s Capital Times on Wednesday 28 November, 2007.

About a third of the way through Elizabeth The Golden Age, handsome pirate Walter Raleigh arrives at Court bringing his Queen gifts from the New World: potatoes in a box of soil and tobacco (bringing to mind that wonderful Bob Newhart routine: “Then what do you do, Walt? ha! ha! ha!… You set fire to it!”) But what Raleigh (played by Clive Owen with an old-fashioned movie star cool that he hasn’t mustered before) is really offering Elizabeth is the future; a future of gunpowder, international trade, science and empire. And for another 400 years Britannia will rule the waves.

Unlike some, I can’t comment too much on the historical accuracy of the film – it seemed pretty close to how I remember studying it as an eight year old – but absolute accuracy doesn’t seem to be the point. The portrait of a woman who has to become an icon (super-human and at the same time less than human) in order to preserve her people is ripe for a melodramatic Hollywood telling and director Shekhar Kapur and star Cate Blanchett don’t let us down.

This film is a sequel, of course, to the remarkably successful Elizabeth that launched Blanchett nearly ten years ago. That success means a bigger budget this time around – hundreds more extras, flasher sets and a rip-roaring maritime set-piece – but it is the supremely controlled Blanchett that dominates. As we rejoin the story her position is still insecure: challenged from the North by half-sister Mary Queen of Scots and from the South by Philip of Spain, the tussle is between Catholic superstition (and medieval brutality) and the enlightened religious tolerance that would allow an Empire to flourish. No wonder some Catholics aren’t happy with this version of history…

Fingers crossed that this year we’ll only get one fat, jolly, red-faced Santa movie after last year’s woeful bunch: but if we have to have one I’m pleased to report that Fred Claus isn’t too embarrassing. A fine cast, including Kevin Spacey and Miranda Richardson, have been gathered to tell the story of Santa’s big brother (Vince Vaughan) who left home in a sulk many years ago and is now a cynical repo man in Chicago.

Meanwhile Santa (Paul Giamatti) is stressed out as more and more kids are asking for more and more presents (not like the old days when one present per kid was enough). When Fred needs to be bailed out of chokey, Santa sees a chance to bring the family back together and get some extra help at the North Pole. The tone of the film is pretty random and the humour is hit and miss but Giamatti’s performance as Santa is so fine that, if he rolled it out in any other film, we’d be talking about award nominations. Seriously.

Diaspora and mass dislocation is the great story of the modern age – from the Irish fleeing the potato famine to the millions in Africa displaced by war or genocide. It’s no picnic abandoning your home and everything you know for the hint of a better life – ask your taxi driver - and Emanuele Crialese’s Golden Door plays as a worthy tribute to all those who have ever taken that risk. His film follows a turn of the (last) century Sicilian family escaping the grinding poverty of their island in the hope of getting to Walter Raleigh’s New World where money grows on trees and there are rivers of milk. Once there, they exchange one island for another (Ellis) where they are prodded and tested before being found worthy of America. Crialese’s eye for an arresting image and a lovely performance from lead Vincenzo Amato make Golden Door one of the unsung art-house films of the year.

Mr. Brooks is an odd fish – the film and the character. Kevin Costner plays successful self-made businessman Earl Brooks; he’s Portland’s Man of the Year but he has a secret. Not only is he a demented serial-killer but he has an imaginary friend (William Hurt) who sits in the back seat of his car getting him in to trouble so its a bit like a grown-up version of Drop Dead Fred. Costner’s tendency to underplay everything means we never get a real sense of the torment under the button-down facade but at least he is consistently interesting, unlike the sub-plot involving the cop chasing him (Demi Moore) and her divorce.

For space reasons, only the Elizabeth segment of this review was printed in the Capital Times, Wednesday 21 November, 2007. For some reason they then printed a version of it again in the Films of the Week section at the back of the book, instead of some more of my gorgeous prose. I love them like family, and am intensely grateful for the opportunity to do this in front of an audience, but would like to point out that I don’t have anything to do with the strangely edited “Films of the Week” apart from providing the raw material.