Showing posts with label 2006. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2006. Show all posts
Five young people in Norway go off on a ski weekend, but the trouble begins when one of them, Morten (Rolf Kristian Larsen), breaks his leg. The group seeks shelter in what turns out to be an abandoned ski resort, which happens to have one unfortunate, and homicidal, occupant in the basement. It isn't long [actually it's rather long] before the skiers are fighting for their lives against this menacing stranger. The main problem with Cold Prey -- which might be considered Norway's answer to the Friday the 13th/ mad slasher franchise -- is that the first half is staggeringly tedious, showing us these standard horny teens in much too much detail. On the other hand, all that detail does let us distinguish one from the other, which helps you care a bit about [or at least know] who's being fricasseed when the slaughter begins. What saves the movie is a fairly solid second half, which is exciting and well-directed and greatly abetted by the performances of the talented cast, with Larsen and Ingrid Borsal Berdal (as Jannicke) taking top honors. There's a striking and suspenseful climax near a crevasse as well. The movie does feature some by-now very familiar elements, including a lone female survivor taking care of the killer a la all those American slasher films. Gore-geeks will be disappointed as the film doesn't rely too much on sickening graphic details. The movie has had two sequels so far.
Verdict: You've seen it all before, but once it gets going it's quite well done. ***.
Spoto doesn't spend too much time detailing the terrible childhood and awful privations Belgium-born Hepburn suffered during the Nazi occupation of Arnhem before we're off exploring her rapid rise to stardom and her many memorable film roles. Originally trained to be a dancer, Hepburn's deportment and good looks earned her the title role in the play Gigi and many accolades from the critics of the day, although Hepburn thought she was still learning how to act throughout the lengthy run. [Whether or not she was disappointed that the role of Gigi went to Leslie Caron in the big-screen musical adaptation, Spoto doesn't say.] She had already had a good role in the British film Secret People, but now found herself working with such famed directors as William Wyler and Billy Wilder and such actors as William Holden, with whom she had a brief affair, and Humphrey Bogart and Fred Astaire, who were not always easy to work with. She was most often paired with much, much older men, such as Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck, and later, Cary Grant in Charade. She won an Oscar, had what she considered her greatest role in The Nun's Story [befriending the real-life nun and the book's author, who apparently were a long-time lesbian couple], and "stole" the role of Eliza Doolittle from Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady where she spent hours on singing lessons only to learn Marni Nixon had already dubbed all of her songs. Although Hepburn wasn't much different from other actresses in that she had affairs even while married to actor Mel Ferrer [who directed her in Green Mansions and appeared in such films as Born to Be Bad and Eaten Alive, not to mention a solid role on Falcon Crest], Spoto treads lightly, as if not wanting to spoil her image; he's very tough on Ferrer, however. Hepburn left films to become a full-time wife and mother, made a few movies of varying quality some years later [Robin and Marian; Bloodline], then had perhaps her most fulfilling role as a hands-on goodwill ambassador for Unicef, flying on military planes to such desperately hungry nations as Ethiopia and witnessing the starvation and its effects first-hand. She had two disappointing marriages, but found some happiness with companion Robert Wolders in her final years before succumbing to cancer. Enchantment is a good read, fast-paced, well-researched, and makes it clear that movie stardom is not always a recipe for lasting happiness.
Verdict: Solid and very readable biography. ***.
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| David Suchet and the rest of the cast |
The enigmatic Shaitana (Alexander Siddig) invites three detectives, including Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) and the mystery writer Ariadne Oliver (Zoe Wanamaker) to dinner along with four individuals -- two men and two women -- whom Shaitana suspects of murder. Later on they divide into two groups to play bridge, and during one of the rubbers the host is quietly murdered. Now Poirot and the other sleuths must investigate the background of the guests to determine who may have killed in the past, and who then presumably killed Shaitana to protect themselves. This adaptation of Agatha Christie's excellent novel suffers because screenwriter Nick Dear thinks he is more clever than the Grand Dame of Mystery, making stupid changes in the story that only weaken the whole project. Like many others, Dear thinks introducing a homoerotic element will make the story seem more "modern" [thankfully it's a period piece, taking place more or less at the same time as the novel], but in this case it only makes it distinctly more dated, even homophobic. Worse, some of Dear's changes make nonsense out of some of the sequences that remain [for instance, without giving too much away, we're supposed to believe that a woman who detests her doctor and wants him brought up on charges will actually go to him to get her inoculations for traveling out of the country! When she probably wouldn't even want to be in the same room with him? Did no one involved in the production ever protest this development?] Dear also makes two of the characters related to one another, as they were not in the novel, in hindsight making their scenes together ridiculous, and also switches the character traits of two other characters for no good purpose. [Changes are fine if they improve a piece or make it more cinematic, but this is sheer arrogant stupidity.] At least the production is smooth and Suchet is as wonderful as ever as Poirot; the rest of the cast is also excellent with Siddig as Shaitana and Alex Jennings as Dr. Roberts especially notable. Zoe Wanamaker seems a little bit closer to Christie's alter ego Ariadne Oliver in this outing, but is still not quite right. Like most of these Poirot episodes this one is entertaining enough but the smarmy changes to the story were certainly ill-advised.
Verdict: Stick with the novel. **.
This is an interesting biography of stage, screen and television actress Grayson Hall, who was nominated for a supporting Oscar for The Night of the Iguana, but who will always be best-known for playing Dr. Julia Hoffman on the afternoon Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. The book looks into her early days before she reinvented herself as "Grayson Hall," her two marriages, her complicated relationship with her father, and the many people she knew and worked with in New York City. Jamison looks at the film that Hall denied she ever made, wherein she played a madame, Satan in High Heels, as well as the low-budget End of the Road, not to mention the two theatrical features based on Dark Shadows. Her stage work was eclectic and controversial: La Ronde, Genet's The Balcony, and even a couple of musicals. She was doing previews of The Madwoman of Chaillot when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I remember watching Dark Shadows and wondering in how many different ways Hall could intone the phrase "I don't know" which she seemed required to say many times in every episode. Never conventionally attractive -- one might even say she possessed sublime ugliness -- Hall nevertheless proves quite glamorous in some youthful shots in the photo section. Jamison does a good job exploring the life and work of Hall, and suggests that back in the day she was almost some kind of gay icon.
Verdict: For Dark Shadows fans and theater enthusiasts. ***.
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| Nicolas Cage in a --what else? -- tense moment |
THE WICKER MAN (2006).Writer/ director: Neil LaBute. Based on a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer.
A cop named Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) gets a letter from an ex-fiancee, Willow (Kate Beahan) who tells him that her daughter, Rowan, is missing. He travels to an island in Washington where Willow lives and where she has joined an odd matriarchal and religious society that has an upcoming celebration. The islanders try to convince Malus that the missing child doesn't exist, and even Willow acts strangely, finally confessing that Rowan is also Malus' daughter. Malus fears that the girl is to be used in a horrifying ritual, but on that point he may be slightly mistaken ... This remake of the 1974 British cult film The Wicker Man transplants the action to the U.S. and for some reason does away with all the free-spirited sexuality of the islanders, even as there are some hints that this is essentially a Sapphic society, giving the film a [perhaps unwarranted] homophobic cast-- at one point Cage punches out a stereotypically butch female tavern owner. Instead of Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, we get Ellen Burstyn as Sister Summerisle, and instead of people breaking out into song we get a lot of bees buzzing about a hero who's allergic to them [but somehow survives]. This version of The Wicker Man may be intriguing (as well as confusing) to viewers who've never seen the original film, as the basic storyline is still absorbing. LaBute has cooked up a more modern-type post script for the film. Cage is not bad, but this is not a "great" performance a la Edward Woodward's in the original. Paul Sarossy's cinematography is a plus.
Verdict: The perfect film version of this story has yet to be made, but the original is better. **1/2.