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British Cinema British eccentricities continue to attract international interest, including, strangely, the sometimes outrageous examination of domestic themes: sink estates, unemployment and crime.
The Pillow Book / Peter Greenaway 1995. BW/Colour. UK/Fr/Netherlands. 126 mins. DVD. Exquisite calligraphy applied to her flesh by her father in a childhood birthday ritual has created an obsessive fascination in Nagiko (Vivian Wu). An encounter with Jerome (Ewan McGregor) leads her to create a pillow book on his body and, after his death, on the bodies of others; all of whom are sent as messengers and manuscripts to the corrupt publisher who has abused Nagiko’s father. Calligraphy here seems to raise questions as to the relative importance of style and substance, which are in turn reflected in the filmmaker’s technique: the live action unfolds against a background of illustrations, text, lists, subtitles and inset frames, the whole underscored by musical lyrics and dialogue in several languages. Peter Greenaway’s work often seems impenetrable initially, but perseverance is repaid, here and elsewhere, with absorption as familiarity with the filmic language grows.
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Trainspotting / Danny Boyle 1995. Colour. UK. 110 mins. DVD. Highly influential rendering of the best-selling novel by Irvine Welsh, following the highs (sic) and lows of a bunch of junkies, thieves and nutcases. Ewan McGregor, Johnny Lee Miller and Ewen Bremner are a squalid trio who have elected for the exhilaration of heroin against the grinding normality of mainstream society. McGregor eventually tries to escape from the slough of self destruction but border-line psychotic Robert Carlisle joins forces with Miller and Bremner to drag him back. Often hilarious and sometimes stomach-churning, Trainspotting launched the careers of the four main actors.
Trainspotting / Irvine Welsh
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Brassed Off / Mark Herman 1996. Colour. UK. 103 mins. DVD. Pete Postlethwaite is the leader of a colliery brass band who places the band and its music above all else. The future of the colliery is under review, part of the last tranche of Tory cutbacks in the mining industry. The band members are more concerned with their jobs and families than with Postlethwaite’s ambition to reach the finals of a national competition. Accomplished flugel player Tara Fitzgerald returns to her home town and joins the band after overcoming resistance from the all-male ensemble. She becomes romantically involved with fellow member Ewan McGregor while concealing the fact that she is the author of the crucial feasibility study. But the study is a sham — the decision to close the pit had been taken two years previously. The closure brings desperation to the community and suicidal despair to Postlethwaites’s son Phil (Stephen Tomkinson). As Postlethwaite pushes the band mercilessly through the competition heats the wives and girlfriends of the musicians and the community as a whole are brought together and support the band’s progress all the way to triumph in the Albert Hall. Sentiment, tragedy and comedy are mixed in equal measure by a strong cast that includes Jim Carter, Sue Johnson and Melanie Hill. The music is from the Grimethorpe Colliery Band and includes a haunting arrangement of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. When all is done Postlethwaite has come to realise that people are more important than music and delivers a telling denunciation of politicians who put efficiency over the lives of communities. If Margaret Thatcher deserves a monument, this is the monument she deserves.
Brassed Off / Soundtrack Album Format: 1 Disc. 19 Tracks.
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The English Patient / Anthony Mingella 1996. Colour. UK/USA/It. 155 mins. DVD. The screen adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s complex novel flickers between a cartographic expedition to pre-WWII Sahara and a ruined monastery in wartime Italy. Here a badly burned and amnesiac patient (Ralph Fiennes) is cared for by a Canadian nurse (Juliette Binoche). Also inhabiting the closed world of the monastery are Binoche’s Sikh lover (Naveen Andrews) and an Allied spy (Willem Dafoe). The presumed English patient’s past life unfolds in a series of flashbacks that reveal a tragic romantic involvement with Kristin Scott Thomas. Cartography recurs as an underlying theme as does the patient’s copy of Herodotus’s Histories. This last, although not directly relevant to the plot, is available to the curious from our Bookshop.
The English Patient / Michael Ondaatje
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Michael Collins / Neil Jordan 1996. Colour. UK. 127 mins. DVD. Liam Neeson takes the role of the charismatic Irish leader who played cat-and-mouse with the British after the 1916 Easter Rising and emerged as one of the principal negotiators of the 1922 Treaty and Head of the Irish Free State. Republican infighting and the manipulations of Eamon de Valera (Alan Rickman) and his circle lead to civil war and the assassination of the ‘Big Fellow’. The mostly dependable cast includes Ian Hart, Stephen Rea and Aidan Quinn. Julia Roberts, as Collins’s lover Kitty Kiernan, is an awkward addition but presumably helped attract financing. James Mackay’s biography Michael Collins: A Life is available from our Bookshop.
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The Full Monty / Peter Cattaneo 1997. Colour. UK. 88 mins. DVD. A motley bunch of unemployed men set out to regain the self-respect that vanished with their jobs by launching themselves as male strippers. The result is a gentle comedy with strong emotional undertones as the group deal with the personal consequences of unemployment while forging an act out of the least likely sextet ever to flash flesh! An unlikely international blockbuster with equally excellent performances from Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Addy, Paul Barber, Hugo Speer and Steve Hulson.
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Elizabeth / Shekhar Kapur 1998. Colour. UK. 119 mins. DVD. A cavalier approach to history (including the occasional imaginary battle) is camouflaged by some fine performances and superb production values. Cate Blanchett struggles to survive the animosity of her Catholic half-sister ‘Bloody’ Mary (Kathy Burke), romantic entanglement with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Joseph Fiennes), the marriage-broking of William Cecil (Richard Attenborough) and the intrigues of Spanish, French and Scots. Rejecting dynastic alliances and personal gratification she emerges triumphantly as Gloriana, a deliberate self-creation and symbol of an England on the cusp of the Elizabethan Renaissance. The supporting cast includes Christopher Eccleston as Norfolk and Geoffrey Rush as Walsingham, the long serving progenitor of Elisabeth’s intelligence service. A more accurate account of the Tudor period can be found in G R Elton’s England Under the Tudors, available from our Bookshop.
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Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels / Guy Ritchie 1998. Colour. UK/USA. 107 mins. DVD. Card sharps, porn merchants, yuppie hydroponic marijuana farmers, Jamaican drug dealers and assorted vagabonds, thieves and hard men — all London life is here! Guy Ritchie’s debut is a wonderful, witty, intricate and hilarious crime thriller that has drawn comparisons with Reservoir Dogs (1992 qv) and Pulp Fiction (1994 qv). Tarantino’s influence seems clear, but Ritchie transcends mere imitation to produce a totally original piece of work. The line-up includes Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Steven Mackintosh, Nick Moran, Vas Blackwood, Sting; and Vinnie Jones as Big Chris, the thug-for-hire with a heart of EPNS.
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Legend of 1900 / Guiseppe Tornatore 1999. Colour. UK. 120 mins. DVD. The year is 1945 and a down-on-his-luck cornet player Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince) exchanges his instrument for cash in a dockside music shop. At the quayside a luxury liner turned troop carrier is in the last stages of decommissioning prior to being towed out to sea and scuttled. Max asks for one last use of his cornet and plays a few melodic bars. The shopkeeper (Peter Vaughan) recognises the tune and dusts off on old recording that is both master and only copy. Max knows the history of the recording and thus begins the strange and wonderful legend of 1900. After a millennial New Year’s party a baby is found abandoned in a fruit box in the liner’s ballroom. The foundling is adopted by a black stoker and named after his discoverer, the box label and the day of his adoption: ‘Danny Boodman TD Lemon Nineteen Hundred’. 1900 is raised on board by the liner’s crew and by some unclear metamorphosis grows to be a piano prodigy and a star feature through the lavish heyday of trans- Atlantic passenger crossings. Tim Roth is the enigmatic and eclectic musician who resists the temptations to leave the SS Virginian for dry land — a soul mate in the form of immigrant Melanie Thierry, the blandishments of the producer responsible for his single recording, the sights and sounds of the ports at either end of the Virginian’s run. The legend progresses with gentle humour until it becomes apparent that Max, a one-time member of the Virginian’s band, believes that 1900 is still on board. The film is scored by Enio Morricone and the highlights include a waltzing piano in a storm and a musical duel with Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III) the flamboyant self-styled inventor of ragtime and jazz. For more of Jelly Roll Morton and ragtime, go to our Jazz Store.
Legend of 1900 / Soundtrack Album Format: 1 Disc. 21 Tracks.
—————————————————————————————————————- American Cinema Hollywood matches Great Britain with a brilliant burst of quirkiness (albeit with British writers and directors well represented). Terry Gilliam, Bryan Singer, Mike Figgis, the Coen Brothers, Spike Jones, John Madden and Roger Michell make notable contributions, with The Usual Suspects, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Being John Malkovich out-weirding the rest. With Shakespeare in Love and Notting Hill, Hollywood intrudes on very British territory.
The American President / Rob Reiner 1995. Colour. USA. 109 mins. DVD. Slick and sentimental romantic comedy in which the widowed president (Michael Douglas) falls for environmental lobbyist Annette Bening, only to have the affair exploited by Republican antagonist Richard Dreyfuss. Ethical conflicts resolve themselves as the fairytale plot unrolls. Writer Aaron Sorkin was to create the award winning TV series The West Wing and the similarities are obvious. Martin Sheen, the White House Chief of Staff in the film, went on to play the president in the series and Kathryn Joosten played the president’s secretary on both big and small screens. Both productions paint a picture of a liberal, principled and compassionate White House. If only.
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Braveheart / Mel Gibson 1995. Colour. USA. 170 mins. DVD. Outrageous codswallop that is scarcely redeemed by an epic production and good performances. Director Mel Gibson and writer Randall Wallace are so determined to lionise William Wallace and to demonise the English and the Lowland aristocracy that historical facts are thrown out of the window. As example: Wallace’s impregnation of Isabella, wife of Prince Edward, and her taunting the dying Edward I that the monarchy will pass to Wallace’s descendents. (Wallace was executed in 1305. Prince Edward [now Edward II] and Isabelle married in 1308, after Edward I’s death in 1307. Their son [the future Edward III] was not born until 1312.). The travesty is given undue weight by Patrick McGoohan as Edward I, Angus MacFadyen as Robert the Bruce and Ian Bannen as Bruce the elder. The portrayal of Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) adds homophobic caricature to blatant chauvinism. For the serious (and for embarrassed Scots) the period is covered by a number of volumes on the Scotland page of our Bookshop. The wider British and European context is more than adequately dealt with by M H Keen in England in the Later Middle Ages, also available from our Bookshop.
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Leaving Las Vegas / Mike Figgis 1995. Colour. USA. 107 mins. DVD. Nicholas Cage divests himself of material goods and family attachments, determined to drink himself to death. He falls in with equally downcast prostitute Elizabeth Shue and the meeting develops into a doomed romance. The nihilism is relieved by good performances in one of the highest praised films of 1995. John O’Brien, who wrote the original novel, committed suicide while the film was in production.
Leaving Las Vegas / John O'Brien
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Nixon / Oliver Stone 1995. Colour/BW. USA. 190 mins. DVD. Oliver Stone continues as self-appointed guardian of the American conscience with a semi-fictionalised presentation of the career of Richard Millhouse Nixon — in turn epitome and betrayer of the American Dream. Stone is in his element when dealing with conspiracies, and Watergate and its ramifications might have been tailor-made as a springboard for the director. Anthony Hopkins takes the lead, with Powers Boothe as Alexander Haig, Bob Hoskins as J Edgar Hoover, Ed Harris as Howard Hunt, Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger and David Hyde Pierce as John Dean.
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Se7en / David Fincher 1995. Colour. USA. 122 mins. DVD. Brutal and often nauseating, Se7en combines a series of formulaic clichés into a compelling whole. Morgan Freeman is the soon-to-retire cop charged with training his replacement, Brad Pitt. The pair are faced with a series of murders and it becomes apparent that the perpetrator has set out to illustrate extreme examples of the Seven Deadly Sins. The culminating sins, Envy and Wrath, produce a horrifying climax. The cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Richard Roundtree and Kevin Spacey as the killer John Doe.
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Twelve Monkeys / Terry Gilliam 1995. Colour. USA/UK/Ger/Japan/Fr. 124 mins. DVD. Always original, Terry Gilliam joins forces with writer David Peoples (Blade Runner, 1982 and Unforgiven, 1992 qv) to produce a movie that avoids the usual time-travel technicalities and killer-virus clichés. The year is 2035 and the planet is inhabited by a few subterranean survivors of a deadly plague. Prisoner Bruce Willis is ‘volunteered’ to travel back to the 1990s and gather information about the origins of the outbreak. Appearances suggest the involvement of animal rights activist Brad Pitt. But there’s more, and Willis’s ineluctable fate unfolds …. Madeleine Stowe plays the psychiatrist who needs to be convinced of Willis’s story.
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The Usual Suspects / Bryan Singer 1995. Colour. USA. 102 mins. DVD. Academy Award winner Christopher McQuarrie’s continually surprising script is brilliantly directed by Bryan Singer in his mainstream debut. Five mismatched crooks are drawn together by a police identity parade and embark on a series of capers, not realising that a directing hand is at work. When a multi-million dollar drug heist ends with a devastating shipboard explosion there are twenty seven bodies and one dying survivor. A complicated story unravels as special investigator Kujan (Chas Palminteri) interrogates twitchy gang member ‘Verbal’ Kint (Kevin Spacey in an Oscar winning performance). A new level of complexity is added by a revelation from the dying ship hand and the story proceeds with spiralling sleight of hand. Spacey carries the plot, Gabriel Byrne is a calm counterpoint to grinning sociopath Stephen Baldwin, sardonic Kevin Pollack and the inspired incoherence of Benicio Del Toro. Peter Postlethwaite is the enigmatic lawyer Kobayashi, agent of the sinister Keyser Soze.
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Fargo / Joel & Ethan Coen 1996. Colour. USA. 94 mins. DVD. Minnesota born Joel and Ethan Coen take an affectionate look at quirky locals, quirky accents and solid Midwestern decency in this comedy thriller. A brainless car salesman hires a couple of out-of-towners to kidnap his wife and collect a ransom from her father. Mayhem follows. Heavily pregnant cop Frances McDormand plods relentlessly through the snow from crime scene to crime scene between spells of downhome domesticity. William H Macy is the salesman, Kristin Rudrud the kidnapped wife and Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare the kidnappers. Harve Presnell plays the tight-fisted father-in-law.
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The Crucible / Nicholas Hytner 1996. Colour. USA. 118 mins. DVD. Arthur Miller adapted his stage play for the screen forty three years after the classic drama of the Salem witch trials first hit the boards. Famous as a salvo against McCarthyism and the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1940s and 1950s, The Crucible is also a broader attack on the dangers that arise when fanaticism is manipulated by self-interest. Daniel Day-Lewis plays John Proctor, the ultimate target of the accusing group of girls led by Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder). Proctor’s wife Elizabeth is played by Joan Allen. Puritanical support is provided by Bruce Davison as the Reverend Parris and Paul Scofield as Judge Danforth, with Rob Campbell as the Reverend Hale, the forlorn voice of reason. Superb performances all round.
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William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet / Baz Luhrmann 1996. Colour. USA/Australia/Can. 115 mins. DVD. An occasionally interesting and occasionally trying transposition of Romeo and Juliet to modern-day west coast USA. Montagues and Capulets are recreated as corporate dynasties in the gang-ridden metropolis of Verona. The energy of the production carries, to some extent, the use of the Shakespearean text, but purists will find much to quibble with. Worth watching, at the very least, for its use of TV newscasts to deliver the prologue. Glossy and fast paced enough to attract a younger audience, at least for a while. With Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo), Claire Danes (Juliet), Brian Dennehy (Ted Montague), Paul Sorvino (Fulgencio Capulet), John Leguizamo (Tybalt), Harold Perrineau (Mercutio) and Miriam Margolyes as the Nurse.
Romeo and Juliet / William Shakespeare
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LA Confidential / Curtis Hanson 1997. Colour. USA. 132 mins. DVD. Good solid crime drama, well adapted from James Elroy's novel. Three LA police officers (Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce) are unconvinced by the early arrests of three black men following the murder of six people in a diner. Their independent investigations point towards corrupt veteran officer James Cromwell. This deceptively simple storyline is the foundation for a complex plot that depends heavily on the characterisation and ambitions of the leads. Danny DeVito appears as a tabloid journalist and Kim Basinger won a Best Supporting Oscar for her performance as an upmarket call girl.
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City of Angels / Brad Silverberg 1998. Colour. USA. 109 mins. DVD. Hollywood-ised re-working of Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire (1987 qv), City of Angels is a supernatural love story in which guardian angel Seth (Nicholas Cage) appears, literally, to comfort surgeon Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan) after the loss of one of her patients. The discovery of a soul mate creates a dilemma for Seth, who has to choose between immortality and love. Earnest performances from Cage and Ryan, with some nice poetic imagery.
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas / Terry Gilliam 1998. Colour. USA. 113 mins. DVD. Hunter S Thompson’s chaotic epitaph for the 60s is translated to the screen with Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke, Thompson’s alter ego. Duke (‘I’m a Doctor of Journalism’) and his bloated attorney Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) set out to report on a desert dirt race with a suitcase full of every mind-altering substance known to man. ‘We were somewhere near Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.’ What follows is a brain-addled saga of wrecked hotel rooms and bizarre encounters, with Tobey Maguire, Cameron Diaz, Ellen Barkin and Gary Busey among others. Hallucination mixes with Las Vegas venues so grotesque that it is difficult to know which is which; and you will be lucky to catch one word in three of the rambling dialogue on first viewing — somehow this doesn’t seem to matter. Johnny Depp gives an uncanny imitation of Thompson (he spent months with the author prior to shooting), manipulating the author’s trademark cigarette holder like a latter-day Groucho Marx and capturing Thompson’s verbal affectations perfectly. Voice-over melds with speech so imperceptibly that Thompson is often unsure whether he is thinking, or saying things out loud. A rococo triumph, not for the lily-livered — this really is bat country!
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas / Soundtrack Album Format: 1 Disc. 18 Tracks.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas / Hunter S Thompson
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Gods and Monsters / Bill Condon 1998. Colour. USA. 101 mins. DVD. A not entirely sympathetic elegy for James Whale, director of Frankenstein (1931 qv), The Invisible Man (1933 qv), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935 qv) and many more. Ian McKellen plays a sophisticated and ailing Whale, reliving his past life through memories and disturbed dreams. His urbanity is contrasted with the vulgarity of contemporary Hollywood. Openly and sometimes aggressively homosexual, he is attracted to his new gardener (Brendan Fraser). Lynn Redgrave is his long-serving housekeeper. Poignant, with some authentic-feeling flashbacks. Whale was found dead in his swimming pool in 1957.
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Primary Colors / Mike Nichols 1998. Colour. USA. 137 mins. DVD. A witty and intelligent script by Elaine May gives an only slightly disguised portrait of a Clintonesque presidential candidate. Political ambition, compassion and sexual amorality are merged in the character of Governor Jack Stanton, played to perfection by John Travolta, whose dalliances seem about to surface and destroy his campaign. Adrian Lester is his idealistic campaign manager, Emma Thompson his long suffering wife, Billy Bob Thornton a crafty redneck political strategist and Kathy Bates a pile-driving lesbian troubleshooter. An accomplished satire on the American electoral process.
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Shakespeare in Love / John Madden 1998. Colour. USA. 119 mins. DVD. Joyous romp through Elizabethan London in the company of a writer’s-blocked William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes). Young Will is bogged down in his latest oeuvre, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter, which he has sold in advance to two competing theatre managers. Snippets of dialogue are gathered, almost subliminally, from London streets and taverns; and rival playwright Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett) chips in with some helpful advice and a niggling doubt about Will’s title. But real inspiration comes from an encounter at a ball with Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), a stagestruck beauty who, dressed as a boy, had already auditioned for the role of Romeo. Doomed romance follows — she has been promised to the obnoxious Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) - and the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet materialises from the tragedy of Will and Viola. Shakespearean technique — gender-bending, mistaken identity, rapier-quick dialogue — is re-invented triumphantly by writers Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. A great British ensemble cast includes Geoffrey Rush as Philip Henslowe, Martin Clunes as Richard Burbage, Tom Wilkinson as Hugh Fennyman, Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth and Simon Callow as her Master of Revels. Breathtakingly clever, never impenetrable, crammed full of ingenious references and witty anachronisms, Shakespeare in Love is, above all, a magical celebration of theatre and the Bard — ‘It’s a mystery!’
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American Beauty / Sam Mendes 1999. Colour. USA. 117 mins. DVD. A saga of suburban midlife crises underscored with slashes of the richest red and blackest humour. English stage director Sam Mendes transfers his talents to the screen in a masterful debut, ably assisted by writer Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey tells the story of his revolt from a stultifying job and a barely functioning family: a manic wife (Annette Bening) juggling career, home, faddish self-improvement and extra-marital sexual re-awakening; and a daughter (Thora Birch) who holds him in contempt. Spacey is jolted into youthful regression by fantasies involving pubescent cheerleader Mena Suvari. The tragi-comedy unfolds in a milieu populated by gay professionals Sam Robards and Scott Bakula, marine Chris Cooper, and his drug-dealing son Wes Bentley, whose obsessive video-taping of Spacey’s daughter inadvertently leads to a fatal misunderstanding. ‘American Beauty’ is a variety of rose, brilliantly coloured but scentless.
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Being John Malkovich / Spike Jonze 1999. Colour. USA. 112 mins. DVD. The first feature from Spike Jonze is a unique peculiarity. Angst-ridden puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is nagged by drab wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz, would you believe) into taking remunerative employment. The Lester Corporation is located on floor seven-and-a-half of an office building, a place of squished-down corridors and inaccessible elevators. Add in femme fatale Catherine Keener and a mysterious portal that leads into the head of John Malkovich and the fun is only just beginning. The man himself plays himself with obvious relish, entering his own brain through the portal with mind-bending results. It sounds weird and weird it certainly is; but Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman sustain the surreal logic to the end of a film that resists description. Watch and wonder!
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The Cider House Rules / Lasse Hallstrom 1999. Colour. USA. 120 mins. DVD. Michael Caine stars alongside Tobey Maguire and Charlize Theron in this atmospheric tale of moral ambivalence set in the New England of the 1930s and 1940s. Benign Dr. Wilbur Larch (Caine) runs an orphanage and also performs safe but illegal abortions. Larch has trained young resident Homer Wells (Maguire) to be his successor. When Candy Kendall (Theron) and Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd) arrive to arrange a termination, Homer attaches himself to the couple and breaks away from Larch to work in a cider orchard owned by Wally’s mother. There he meets an enormous black field hand (Delroy Nelligan). When Wally goes off to the war, a special rapport develops between Homer and Candy. In the meantime racism, incest and the morality of abortion are examined. John Irving wrote the script, based on his novel.
The Cider House Rules / John Irving
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The Green Mile / Frank Darabont 1999. Colour. USA. 188 mins. DVD. A second adaptation of a Stephen King prison drama (see The Shawshank Redemption, 1994) from Frank Darabont. The engaging morality tale is so beautifully produced that the stock characters are easily forgiven and interest is sustained throughout a marathon three hours. The scene is Death Row in a Louisiana penitentiary. The polarity between the benevolent warder-in-charge Paul Edgecombe (Tom Hanks) and his sadistic subordinate Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchinson) is reflected in the inmates with the arrival of childlike black giant John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) and sinister sociopath Wild Bill Wharton (Sam Rockwell). John Coffey has been condemned for the brutal rape and murder of two little girls. Coffey’s innate gentleness and a series of strange incidents lead Edgecombe to question his guilt. Good supporting performances from Michael Jeter, James Cromwell, David Morse, Harry Dean Stanton … and a mouse.
The Green Mile / Stephen King
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Notting Hill / Roger Michell 1999. Colour. USA. 119 mins. DVD. Writer Richard Curtis reprises the formula that made Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994 qv) a runaway success. Hugh Grant plays to type as a self-deprecating bookseller who is thrown together with Hollywood megastar Anna Scott (Julia Roberts). As with Four Weddings, the course of true love fails to run smoothly; and as with Four Weddings, the on/off vicissitudes of the affair are relieved by an impressive supporting ensemble of friends and family. Rhys Ifans steals his every scene as Grant’s lodger Spike and there are endearing characterisations from Tim McInnemy, Gina McKee, Hugh Bonneville, Dylan Moran and Emma Chambers as Grant’s scatty sister. The polished craft of Richard Curtis is apparent in every line of an exceptional feelgood movie that does not pretend profundity or contact with the real world.
—————————————————————————————————————- Foreign Cinema After the controversial Bandit Queen Shekhar Kapur went on to direct Elizabeth in 1998 (qv).
Bandit Queen / Shekhar Kapur 1995. Colour. Ind/UK. 119 mins. DVD. A violent and confrontational epic that tells the tale of dacoit leader Phoolan Devi. Given in marriage at the age of eleven, abandoned and made social outcast, variously abused and gang-raped, Devi (Seema Biswas) is taken under the wing of bandit Nirmal Pandey (Vikram Mallah) and takes revenge on the rapists along with conducting daring raids on upper-caste landowners. Devi achieved legendary status in the 1970s and 1980s by distributing her criminal proceeds to lower-caste peasant farmers, and here emerges as an archetype that brings to mind Boudicca, Robin Hood, heroes of the American West and gangsters of the American Depression. Her exploits gained her a considerable following and considerable political power — she was assassinated in the early 2000s.
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