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Mood:
Okay
Outlook:
So so |
The
New Medievalism, The
V, DVInfo.net,
The
Emporium, Mazda
3 Forums, Theory-Ops,
Vancouverscreenwriters.com,
Agraham.ca,
vanramblings,
tv
and not much else, James
Everett, |
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Up
one level
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Ismail Merchant dead at 68
Ismail Merchant, the producer half of Merchant-Ivory
productions is dead at 68. He had been unwell for
some time and was recently hospitalized for treatment
of ulcers.
Maker of over 40 films
His IMDB
list includes over 40 films, many done with his
directing partner, James
Ivory. Among his films were "The Remains
of the Day", "Howard's End", and "A
Room With a View".
He was in post-production of "The
White Countess", a story about a Russian
noblewoman living in Shanghai starring Ralph Pheinnes,
Natasha Richardson, Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave.
Like a lot of movie viewers, I was introduced to
the Merchant-Ivory brand of films with "A Room
With a View", a film that was almost synonymous
with arthouse literate costume dramas in the mid 80s.
The popularity of their films was also tied in with
the rise of Miramax. But they began much earlier.
Ismail Merchant began his film career by financing
a James Ivory film written by the other longtime collaborator,
Ruth
Prawer Jhabvala, ("The Householder"
- 1963). They began to gain notice in 1984 with "The
Bostonians", starring Christopher Reeve, which
put a stamp on their style of emotional conflict set
against societal rules and also adapting literary
works. Merchant-Ivory was catapulted into the front
ranks of moviedom when they were nominated several
times for "A Room With a View" in 1985.
"Maurice" in 1987 was a homosexual romance
set in Edwardian Cambridge was adapted from an E.M.
Forster novel. The next year they made "The Deceivers"
starring Pierce Brosnan, a more conventional adventure
about a British soldier investigating the thugee cult.
They returned to the Oscars in 1992 with "Howard's
End", winning Ruth Prawer Jhabvala her second
Oscar for best screenplay adapted. And again the next
year they were nominated several times for "The
Remains of the Day".
Since "Jefferson in Paris" in 1995, their
films were never that widely distributed (if you can
call the arthouse circuit a wide circulation). "Le
Divorce" from last year was a return to wide
release but it was a farce, not the sumptuous historical
drama for which they will always be known.
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The box office already indicates
that many of you have already seen the third episode
of George Lucas' space faring epic but there may be
some of you who haven't seen it and may be on the
bubble about seeing it. If you ever were a Star Wars
fan, then you will will have to see it in the theatres.
Do that spinning twirling thing again please
The Revenge of the Sith definitely puts a capper
on the first trilogy and on the second trilogy it
presages. But is it a good movie? I have to say, it
is good entertainment, has more than enough to make
up for its shortcomings and stands taller than either
The Phantom Menace and The Attack of
the Clones. Seen as a whole package, special
effects, stunts, battles and all, The Revenge
of the Sith is worth going for anyone who was
a former Star Wars fan.
For those who have never enjoyed one, forget it. What
they might see is a mess of complex set pieces built
around a confusing conspiracy story based around characters
whose import isn't quite clear. That is, if you've
missed any of the first two movies. One character,
the robotic villain General Grievous, isn't even introduced
in any of the previous movies. but appeared
as the main enemy of the Republic in the animated
Clone Wars series shown on the Cartoon Network.
This is a minor complaint when the conflict is as
obtuse as, say, a film about a war between Japanese
feudal lords (Only, to Star Wars fans, the conflict
is more real than real history). A deft filmmaker
would have to ground the importance of such a conflict
with human characters. In The Revenge of the Sith,
Lucas' main challenge is in making us care about either
the brooding psychopath Annakin Skywalker, the clueless
love for him by Padme, and the disquiet of his master
and friend Obi Wan Kenobi. All the other characters
are leaders of one faction or another so it is left
to the triangle of friends to make us care about anything
human against the backround of exploding space fighters
and battling computer graphics.
The complaint from the first two movies remains. The
actors are hamstrung by laugh-out-loud dialogue and
forced setups. In the second movie, Padme for some
reason stays with Annakin even after he reveals to
her that he has wiped out an entire village of sand
people. Their continued relationship is still a mystery.
With the movie hinging on Annakin's turn to the dark
side, it really isn't made clear why he was supposed
to have our sympathies beyond the first movie when
he was the yippee! shouting kid at the controls of
the pod racer. Let's see, he's a jerk. He's committed
genocide. Oh yeah, he is Jedi Council's 'chosen one'.
Right!
Anyway, back to the special effects. They're great!
Lucas and his designers have packed more animation
in each frame than any other movie previously. There
are plenty of light sabre battles and lots of limbs
being burned off. When Obi Wan faces off against the
whirling robot, General Grevious, I could swear that
Obi Wan was actually in the same soundstage as the
robot, or that Obi Wan was a great animation himself.
And R2D2, what a funny little guy! And me? Didn't
you catch me humming that Star Wars theme today as
I thought about writing this review? Yes, you did.
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Election day in British Columbia
Yesterday was the provincial election in B.C. and
as expected the voters returned the Liberals to a second-straight
majority but also sent the NDP to parliament with 30
more seats, making the Legislature more balanced
than the previous Liberal dominated session. The previous
election was as much a repudiation of Premier Glen Clark's
scandal-taint as it was a vote against NDP wastage.
The message of this election is much more that the BC
electorate wanted more debate in government. In
my own riding of Vancouver-Burrard, the current
margin of victory for Liberal Lorne Mayencourt over
NDPer Tim Stevenson is less than 200 votes so my riding
may not be decided until later today. It's interesting
to note from the standing tallies that if three of the
joke or protest parties (Work Less Party, Platinum Party,
SEX party) were not around, the margin might be even
less. And of course the Greens failed to make any impact
Provincially but certainly had an impact in my riding.
Also
a majority endorsed a STV (Single, Transferrable
Vote) election reform package but may not have been
enough to pass the referendum as the bar had been declared
at 60%.
"Assault
on Precinct 13" (2005) |
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A slick remake of the John Carpenter action-thriller
that launched the pulp-meister to fame. The remake reworks
the character premise a bit and adds a lot more firepower
and budget. However, the story isn't that much better
than the original and in some places not as good.
More windows, more guns
I'm not a big fan of the original
film. The premise was good: a collection of police
officers, civilian employees and prisoners temporarily
housed in a decaying precinct station on the eve of
its closing have to fight off mysterious attackers
laying seige one night. The Carpenter original is
very dated today but for its time introduced a few
action tropes that are familiar to fans of action
films. "Aliens" for one was influenced by
it.
The remake starts off well, introducing some much
needed development in the hero's character, a traumatized
former undercover cop (played by Ethan
Hawke) who is destined for a desk job after
two fellow officers are killed in a botched drug buy.
The 2005 version also inserts a better premise for
why the station is being attacked by introducing the
character of a drug lord prisoner ( Laurence
Fishburne) who is targetted for assassination
by corrupt police. When the bus transporting the high
profile mobster is diverted to the lonely station
in the middle of a snow storm, everyone inside is
selected to be killed along with him so that he will
not testify against seemingly the entire department.
The action direction is nice and slick courtesy of
French director Jean-François Richet. However,
aside from the lead characters and the villain (Gabriel
Byrne) none of the other characters in the station
warrant any attention. An abortive romantic interest
seems to be a red herring. Of course the real draw
in the film is the thriller elements and pacing. What
will the attackers do to get in? How will the defenders
deal with it? In many ways this was done a lot better
in last year's "Dawn of the Dead" ( see
my review of that). Assault on Precinct 13
suffers from some lagging in pace at times, something
editing or a tighter script could have solved. In
the end, it is a nicer looking but not much better
than the cheaper original version.
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