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| Masterpiece of melodrama |
ASYLUM Directed by David Mackenzie
Certificate 15
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Natasha Richardson and Sir Ian McKellen in Asylum
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IT is wrong to like a melodrama? If so, then I stand accused
for liking Asylum, particularly Natasha Richardson’s amazing
performance in this bleak, sexy tale based on Patrick McGrath’s
novel and directed by David Mackenzie. Richardson plays Stella,
a terribly beautiful and almost doomed to be bored wife and mother,
married to a loving if clumsy psychiatrist husband (nicely underplayed
by Hugh Bonneville).
The problem is this: we know she’s in trouble the minute we
see she’s married to the shrink. It’s 1950s Britain, she’s
a lively sexy woman and he’s a rather dull head doctor. Who
is going to win here?
When the family follow father to his new role at a psychiatric hospital
with high security, things start ticking.
Some of the inmates are allowed to wander free, including a rather
dishy number called Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas) whose smouldering
good looks mark him out far and away as tastier than her husband.
By the time the inevitable happens, Stark’s smouldering might
as well have set the dry wood ablaze.
The pace is timely and the performances are strong – this includes
Sir Ian McKellen in one of his better roles as the sneaky doctor
Cleave and Gus Lewis as Charlie, the couple’s son who doesn’t
know whose side he is on.
Mackenzie’s Young Adam comes from a similar vein – passion
without love, sex fraught with danger – but Asylum is much
tighter and more elegantly put together, with a better pace, than
his previous effort. Be warned: unless you like melodrama Asylum
won’t be for you.
For others, this is a shocking, stunning complete masterpiece.
The f-word never sounded so funny
THE ARISTOCRATS Directed by Paul Provenza
Certificate 18
THIS comedy/documentary was threatened with not being distributed
by certain cinemas throughout America – something which would
have been a real blow to the film and its team of Penn Jillette
(the taller half of Penn and Teller, the magician/comedians) and
director Paul Provenza.
As it is, The Aristocrats is not only one of the funniest films
ever made, it is also one of the most enjoyably esoteric –
and this is exactly the kind of film that distribution problems
wouldn’t harm. An ‘essay’ work, it examines the one
joke that, it seems, comedians and jokewriters tell each other –
a joke whose structure allows it to be clean or dirty as long as
the structure is adhered to.
That said, it is better dirty – and sometimes, as The Aristocrats
uncovers, it is better when it is extremely dirty.
In fact, it is so funny then that ‘dirty’ really isn’t
the right word: obscene, shocking, rude, outrageous, startling and
deeply offensive are much better choices.
Made over a couple of years, the team said they filmed comedians
and writers on the fly to get their impressions of the joke, who
tells it, why they tell it, how many different ways they’ve
heard it told, who tells it the best and other such erudite questions.
That may sound dull, but the way these bits are spliced together
is sheer genius.
The structure is as intellectually dazzling as the many American
– and some British – celebrities who appear. Seinfeld’s
Jason Alexander, Drew Carey, legendary stand-up George Carlin, even
more legendary comedienne Phyllis Diller and a brashly hilarious
Whoopi Goldberg along with our very own Eric Idle and Eddie Izzard
(pictured).
And then there are worthy lesser-knowns such as Lisa Lampanelli,
Kevin Pollak, Paul Reiser, Bob Saget and Sarah Silverman along with
illustrious names such as Don Rickles, Chris Rock, Jon Stewart and
Robin Williams to name but a few.
See it you must, even if you don’t like the f-word, the c-word,
the s-word or the p-word.
Also showing
Cinderella Man
Russell Crowe is fantastic as Jim Braddock, the has-been boxer who
returns to a tough victory in depression-worn America. Renee Zellweger
stars as his tear-stained, impoverished wife with Paul Giamatti
brilliantly underplaying the role of soft-touch boxing manager.
Overlong, schmaltzy but wonderful when the gloves are on.
Green Street
Elijah Wood wears his worried Hobbit face while enjoying being horrified
by the worst of English football hooligans. Wanting to be The Firm
but not managing it, this is a film that loves violence, harsh lighting
and not much else. Still, a victory for young female director Lexi
Alexander.
The Adventures of Arsene Lupin
Based on a series of tales of a 19th-century gentleman robber, this
film is crammed with plot twists to give an exciting if ultimately
confusing ride through the best of ornate sets and costumes –
with a few modern bits thrown in. Elaborate and silly.
The Man
Samuel L Jackson sinks low to star in this simple-minded, formulaic
cop caper. When a detective sets out to get the man who killed his
partner, he ends up with a smart-mouthed salesman (Eugene Levy)
who tends to get in the way of both his mission and his pistol.
Luke Goss co-stars as Joey.
The Longest Yard
Adam Sandler stars in this uneven if enjoyably silly remake as American
football star Crewe. Imprisoned for points fixing, he puts together
a killer team of convicts for a game against the prison guards –
but there are more things afoot that expected. Its Mr Deeds fused
with Fright Night Lights – a good example of a dumb-yet-surprisingly-sensitive
American comedy, Sandler-style.
The Night of Truth
Winner of the Grand Prix at the Fribourg Film Festival, director
Fanta Regina Nacro’s telling drama set in fictional West Africa
in the aftermath of a decade of war. A parable of African politics,
it tells of the draw of war and the near impossibility of peace.
The Jealous God
A domestic drama based on the novel by John Braine, it’s all
about muffled passion, straight-laced religiosity and things going
wrong in the grim north.
Pick of the indies
Rock School (15)
Not the Jack Black film School Of Rock, rather this is the heady,
full-on, rock-soddened documentary of what that film suggested.
A wannabe rock star realises his own limitations and opens a school
for kids who want to be rock stars.
Paul Green is the Jack Black-style guitar-mad teacher for real.
Green, who, according to his wife is a guitar genius, runs a school
on the American east coast which takes in about 120 kids to teach
them the rudiments of rock.
Green, who admits that he has no formal teacher training, has an
ego the size of a house – but that is tempered with a true
love for his subjects and for those who love rock music as much
as he does.
Touches of trouble come with a teenage Quaker rapper, a boy whose
head is too big and a tiny guitar genius with a bone-disorder.
Nevertheless, the highlight of the film – the Zappanale in
Germany, a festival of Frank Zappa fanatics – is ablaze with
true feeling, as such captured in only the best documentaries.
Director Don Argott has saddled himself with a hot if difficult
subject – kids and a teacher who ostensibly yells at them,
makes fun of them and asks them (jokingly) to worship Satan –
and delivers a peach of a film, full of wonder, laughter, horror
and, if I may, a teary victory. Perfect. |
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