BIG NOTHING

UK, 2006, 86 minutes, Colour.
David Schwimmer, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve, Natasha Mc Elhone, Mimi Rogers, Jon Polito, Julian Glover.
Directed by Jean- Baptiste Andrea.

This is just a bit of fun, a short running time, not very demanding, some laughs – but more disbelief as everything (and more) goes wrong with what seemed to be a simple plan (they rarely are), blackmail and a quick collection of the money. But…

David Schwimmer is Charlie Wood, a PhD factoid and statistic utterer who is out of work and is employed (for about one call) at a Call Centre. The genial man at the next desk is Gus (Simon Pegg) who has a sob story about his going-blind daughter – and the need for ready money for an operation. So, the simple plan: blackmail a reverend who has been visiting illegal porn sites and pick up the money. A forceful young woman, formerly Miss Teen Oklahoma (Alice Eve) insists on joining the scam. What could be more simple?

When the potential victim pulls a gun on Gus, they are all on the first step to chaos. Except for Charlie and his wife (who is a local detective, Natascha Mc Elhone), nobody is really who they claim, so there are twists enough to keep us slightly surprised and macabrely amused. Mimi Rogers turns up briefly and gets an axe in her head – it’s the kind of film where she actually turns up again and dies again, so to speak. Jon Polito is an overweight diabetic FBI agent. And there are a couple of other intended and accidental deaths.

So, a black comedy that is passable and lightweight entertainment.

WORDPLAY

US, 2006, 94 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Patrick Creadon.

A film about crossword puzzles? Well, there have been several films about spelling bees focussing on children, so why not a film about words and puzzles for adults?

This is a fascinating documentary for crossword fans. We learn briefly the history of puzzles, especially from their beginnings in the early 20th century in the New York Times. The focus is on Will Shortz, the man responsible for the puzzles in the Times. While there are lots of interviews with puzzle setters and explanations of how they compose the puzzles, elaborate their clues and incorporate themes, we are treated to the enthusiastic musings (as well as seeing them in action) of several high profile personalities, including Bill Clinton, TV host Jon Stewart, documentarist Ken Burns, a baseball star and others.

The framework of the documentary, which gives it some dramatic interest and momentum, is the annual Crossword tournament held in Connecticut, presided over by Shortz. We are introduced to several of the past winners as well as the principal contenders for the contest which we watch. Special effect techniques help the audience to see clues and the answers as well as the progress participants make. It seems also to be an avid spectator sport, a bit like followers mesmerised by golf play.

It is well put together, keeps the interest – though if you are not a word person, who delights in both verbal intuition and precision, even the excitement of the fast-paced finals, will not persuade you. This is a treat for wordsmiths.

NEW POLICE STORY

Hong Kong 2004, 123 minutes, Colour.
Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse.
Directed by Benny Chan.

Though he seems ageless, Jackie Chan has been round for a long time. He was born in 1954. Some writers talk about his appearances in the Rush Hour films as well as Shanghai Noon and Knights as if he had never been in Hollywood before these huge box-office successes; but he was in The Big Brawl and the two Cannonball Run films in the early 1980s. There are, in fact, 96 acting credits in his CV.

In recent years, he has been popping back and forth between Los Angeles and Hong Kong. New Police Story is a pop back to Hong Kong and a reprisal of a series that began in 1985 with Police Story and its sequel in 1988.

Chan is a friendly screen presence, even when he has to be a depressed officer in the throes of alcoholic drowning of sorrows after a mission that he predicted would be achieved in three hours goes so badly wrong that he loses all his men. A young stranger persuades him to get going again and confront the gang who so brutally taunted him and destroyed his squad.

We see the massacre and find that the murderous bunch are skilled in computer games and organise their crimes and attacks on the police like the games, getting points for killing police. As Chan moves back into investigation, the gang decides to stage another robbery.

The robberies and the pursuits (in a toy shop, a bus careering through a market, a climax on top of the convention centre) provide plenty of opportunity for spectacular stunt work and fighting choreography.

The plot is melodramatic with romantic touches, especially a feel-good –do-good ending and the fact that the gang is made up of for-kicks criminals who don’t need the money but just the thrill and the personal affirmation. (Some pop psychology here!)

But action buzz is what Jackie Chan provides and an admiration for his nimble acrobatics – here aplenty.

IDLEWILD

US, 2006, 121 minutes, Colour.
Andre Benjamin, Big Boi/ Antwan A. Patton, Terrence Howard, Paula Patton, Cicely Tyson, Ben Vereen, Faizon Love, Macy Gray, Ving Rhames.
Directed by Bryan Barber.

If this film were a piece of architecture, it might be called a Folly. Idlewild is one big, lavish, over the top film.

The setting is the 1930s in a small town called Idlewild among the black citizens of the town. Though small, it has a big club where singers hope that they will be signed to record labels and go to Chicago for the big time, where gangsters control the entertainment and the liquor and rely on moonshine deals during Prohibition, where men gamble and their wives wring their hands, where the funeral parlour is not short of business.

Andre Benjamin and Antwan A. Patton portray childhood friends. He is a piano player and composer who works days in his father’s mortuary and cares for his alcoholic parent. The other is the town’s mover and shaker with the club, the liquor and his girls (and wife and several children at home). Into their lives comes a talented singer (Paula Patton) as well as the local ambitious hood (Terrence Howard). We know, more or less, what is going to happen.

However, it doesn’t all happen in a clear and comprehensible way. The audience has to work on it. While we look at the central characters and plot, it is probably better to sit back and absorb the music.

One of the difficulties is that the most lavish, even extravagant, production number, like an old 30s musical, takes place during the closing credits when patrons have a reflex response to get up and leave.

Clearly aimed at the African American audience, it does not travel well beyond its niche.

DRIVING LESSONS

UK, 2006, 98 minutes, Colour.
Rupert Grint, Laura Linney, Julie Walters, Tamsin Egerton, Jim Norton, Nicholas Farrell, Oliver Milburn.
Directed by Jeremy Brock.

Allegedly based on the actual experiences of writer-director, Jeremy Brock, when he worked as a chauffeur for distinguished actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft (Oscar for A Passage to India). One hopes that she was not as loose-mouthed as Julie Walters as this ageing star of TV soaps who is clinging on to edges of life and memories of her heyday!

This is a quirky comedy with Rupert Grint (best known as Ron Weasley, Harry Potter’s friend) as the nice but rather naïve adolescent whose mother is a pillar of the Church and whose father is a Vicar of the Church of England. Laura Linney, sporting a British accent, is the mother and Nicholas Farrell is the retiring but nice vicar. There is also a young curate in the background who looks for relevance of the church in the happy-clappy style.

While mother’s demands on her son set a serious tone, it is his odd escapades with the actress: camping out in the countryside, getting her to a recital in Edinburgh where she succumbs to nerves which provide more of the humour. Ultimately, he has to make decisions for himself.

A slight entertainment with a pleasantly awestruck Rupert Grint and a very eccentric Julie Walters.

BORAT CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICAN FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN

US, 2006, 84 minutes, Colour.
Sacha Baron Cohen,
Directed by Larry Charles.

Any of the work of Sacha Baron Cohen is an acquired taste. His Ali G was a hit on television, less so in the feature film, Ali G in Da House. He did a very good turn as the gay French racing driver in Talladega Nights. Now, he risks a lot in becoming Borat. Will audiences in the British tradition like it and find it funny? Despite any misgivings about tastes and targets, yes. Will audiences with in the American tradition of humour enjoy it? Since they are the targets and not all the jokes are tasteful, the answer is, probably not.

Baron Cohen’s persona this time is a television personality from Kazakhstan where life is the equivalent of an impoverished, illiterate community in the repressive fifties. This is a rather easy target and we can all laugh at the jokes at the expense of yokel equivalents (and, to that extent, the satire is funny while rather cruel). It should be noted that Borat is not afraid of bringing in (and frequently), scatological jokes (literally) and sex jokes. He relishes them. One has to remind oneself that everything human can be the subject of humour especially subjects that we are fastidious about.

Once Borat starts his tour of America, with outlandish behaviour that alarms the locals and with plenty of obtuse remarks and questions, it is really the equivalent of a candid camera program. Borat makes his way across the States, introducing himself in the subway and trying to kiss everyone, interrogating a feminist group, learning to drive and buying a car, finding out about American jokes and timing, talking to politicians, joining a gay pride march, smashing antiques in a store, learning etiquette (and dramatising how the best advice can still to awry), singing his national anthem at a rodeo to the tune of the Star Spangled banner, making friends with an escort, converted at a Pentecostal meeting etc etc until he tries to abduct Pamela Anderson, the object of his dreams.

There are some funny episodes at the expense of anti-Semitism.

This is one of those films that are funny, despite oneself wanting to be both in control and refined.

BARNYARD

US, 2006, 90 minutes, Colour.
Voices of: Sam Elliot, Danny Glover, Andie Mc Dowell, Courtney Cox, Kevin James, Wanda Sykes, David Koechner.
Directed by Steve Odekerk.

Yet another animated film full of talking animals. Not that this one hasn’t got its merits, but it is rather ordinary in comparison with Open Season or Over the Hedge.

The setting is a simple farm with a great variety of birds and animals. One of the bulls, Ben, is in charge (and voiced with his authoritative drawl by Sam Elliot). His son, Otis (voice of Kevin James), is a carefree tearaway who needs to learn responsibility. When the vicious coyotes attack, Otis has to take charge and makes a mess of things. He has to learn heroism and confront the coyotes and unite the animals. Yes, he does. And a nice cow, Daisy (Courtney Cox infinitely sweeter than her Monica in Friends) gives birth to a lovely calf.

The barnyard animals are a spirited lot. As in Toy Story, as soon as the farmer isn’t looking, they go partying. Which doesn’t help their spirit of unity when the coyotes come. Other voices include Danny Glover as the horse, Andie Mc Dowell as the Hen and David Koechner as the malevolent coyote.

Director Steve Odekerk made Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.

It’s OK but not startling.

NINA’S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS

UK, 2006, 94 minutes, Colour.
Laura Fraser, Shelley Conn, Art Malik.
Directed by Pratbha Parmar.

In recent years, Bollywood films have become very popular in the United Kingdom, often being screened in mainstream theatres and on television. At the same time, a small industry has grown up in the UK, the making of films that span the different communities, the families who migrated, especially from Pakistan and India, and the locals who have welcomed them or been hostile to them. Films include East is East, Anita and Me, Chicken Tikka Marsala. Nina’s Heavenly Delights belongs to this genre.

The setting is modern Glasgow – and the film takes a lot of trouble to include as many vistas of the city as possible. The community is Indian (with pronounced Scottish accents), especially those who run restaurants in the city.

This is very much a food movie. It opens with Nina’s father showing her how to make his award-winning curry. Nina (Shelley Conn) goes to London to avoid an arranged marriage but returns when her father dies. There is an air of competitiveness around since her former fiance wants to win the national curry competition; his father wants to buy the restaurant and one of Nina’s schoolfriends (Laura Fraser) now is part-owner. The climax is the competition screened for television. Plenty of ingredients for a curry of a film.

The spicy curry comes from an unanticipated angle. The competition goes as expected. The family squabbles are as predictable enough – involving Nina’s brother and his marrying a white girl, Nina’s mother and her memories of her own arranged marriage, the envy of the jilted fiance. The unexpected angle is that Nina falls in love with her schoolfriend who is in love with her. This lesbian aspect of the story is told with feeling, the story writer-director a woman, showing the attitudes of the family, the determination of the lover, the embarrassment of Nina – and how this all works out for a happy ever after ending. There is also a sub-plot concerning Nina’s friend who is a drag queen in the local Glasgow clubs. While the film seems a straightforward ethnic comedy, it serves as a questioning of traditional values.

KEKEXILI/ MOUNTAIN PATROL

China, 2004, 90 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Lu Chuan.

If you were told that this was a fine film about Tibetan antelope and its possible extinction, you might be tempted to put it on the long finger, the very long finger. But, you would be wrong. There is much more than the plight of the antelope. There is a very beautiful film. It is also quite a tough film.

There is probably something of the National Geographic or the Discovery channel in all of us. Exotic places exercise a beguiling fascination. The locations for Mountain Patrol are definitely exotic: Tibet and remote mountain areas of China.

As regards the very beautiful, the scenery is breathtaking, especially on a big screen. The story takes place in the Kekexili on the Qinghai-Tibetan? Plateau, 5,000 metres high. The mountains are immense and high. The plains are generally rocky, with frozen rivers and pockets of quicksand. The impact is so overwhelming that we feel that we have been taken there to feel its isolation, the cold and winds, the desolation. Yet, it is all extraordinarily beautiful.

As regards the tough, the plot needs a little explanation. We are told that it is based on actual events during the 1990s. Poachers roam the Plateau, searching for the antelopes, armed with rifles and massacring the animals, 500 at a time. Their pelts sell well on the illegal international markets.

At the same time, the locals set up a patrol group under the leadership of Ri Tai (played with gravity and authority by Duo Bujie). They pursue the poachers, the locals who do the skinning and their drivers. This time they take a young Beijing reporter (Zhang Lei). This is no easy expedition. It is physically demanding and not everyone survives.

Reports about the making of the film describe the continuous effects of altitude illnesses on all involved, the freezing conditions – and the enthusiasm of the largely amateur cast. It was a gruelling production and it is compellingly gruelling to watch.

Information at the end tells us that the reporter’s articles led to the Chinese government declaring the area a national and protected park and that the antelope numbers are increasing again.

JOHANNA

Hungary, 2005, 86 minutes, Colour.
Orsolya Toth.
Directed by Kornel Mundruczo.

Johanna is a contemporary opera film from Hungary. Music lovers will find much to interest them in a work composed directly for the screen, the music adapted to the language of images, variety of angles and shots and editing pace. Those who are not opera fans may find the film a difficult experience.

It does not begin operatically. Rather, we are in the night streets of Budapest, traffic, an accident, victims being rushed to hospital where the staff are overworked. They speak. Once inside, the music begins. And then the singing.

By the end, most audiences will recognise the parallels with the passion and death of Jesus. It was only when reading the interview with the director afterwards that I realised that I had missed the parallels with the story of Joan of Arc. The director’s avowed intention was to present a modern interpretation of Joan of Arc.

This Johanna is not a saint. She is a drug addict in the hospital awaiting treatment. The wards and corridors are dark, dank and underground, rather medieval and prison-like. However, Johanna experiences a moment of grace and change. She feels called to comfort the patients who lie asleep, in coma or in pain, the male patients. Her gift is her sexuality and this is what she offers the men. Her sexuality and behaviour are seen as scandalous by the staff except for the doctor who lusts after her. Just as Joan of Arc was pursued by the authorities and judged as immoral, so Johanna is hounded and persecuted by this medical establishment and destroyed.

With its ‘spirituality’ of the woman who is the saint and martyr and who is exploited by men sexually, the film evokes memories of Breaking the Waves. Johanna shares a perspective on women and martyrs for men that Lars Von Trier developed in that film and continued in Dogville. Many women reacted badly to this exaltation of the suffering but exploited woman, seeing it as misogynist and that charge could be levelled at Johanna.

Just as von Trier’s film was visually operatic and stylised, Johanna is literally operatic and stylised – and provocative.