Reviews

I saw The Grinch in a near empty BAFTA screening with only a couple of kids in the audience. But the movie is not only for kids. The screenplay throws up a fair amount of jokes and set pieces aimed at adults.

Jim Carrey is brilliant and truly has made character of The Grinch his own. He would steal the show, if it wasn't already his by default.

His supporting cast do admirable jobs. Taylor Momsen is cute and sweet as Cindy Lou Who while Christine Baranski plays a variation of her Marianne character from Cybill as Martha May Whovier, the love of The Grinch's life.

Rick Baker's make up is fantastic, Rita Ryack's costumes are extremely well made and hats off to Michael Corenblith for his production designs.

The movie itself has a certain charm and will be loved by a large amount of people. Carrey plays to the audience in a similar style as he did in The Mask.

And let's not forget that the movie carries a message - that Christmas is NOT all about gifts, but about being together.

Can't wait for "Green Eggs and Ham" to hit the screens!

Jim Carrey returns to the Farrelly Brothers fold after appearing in their Dumb and Dumber. Between that one and this one, the Farrellys grossed us out with There's Something About Mary.

"Irene" is not as good as the two mentioned above. It has its moments of gross out comedy that Peter and Bobby Farrelly have made their trademarks. Such as Carrey trying to put a cow out of its misery, Carrey getting his own back on his neighbour who has let his dog foul Carrey's garden and Rene Zellweger telling Carrey's good guy character, Charlie, how she and Carrey's bad guy character, Hank, used a dildo the night before.

Let me explain, in case you've been on Mars recently, Me, Myself and Irene is about a Rhode Island cop, Charlie Baileygates, who creates a mean alter ego, Hank, to help him cope with confrontation. Unless Charlie keeps taking his pills, his split personality comes into play!

Its going to get to a point soon where the Farrelly Brothers will have no more taboo subjects to confront head on - what will they do then?

Well? What would you do? If you are a man reading this chances are you would seriously consider doing a few things that Hollow Man's protagonist Sebastian Caine does.

Kevin Bacon plays egotistical yet brilliant scientist, who has succeeded in making animals invisible, but is trying to discover the way to bring them back.

Once Caine discovers this, he is anxious to try the process out on a human - moreover himself. Once Caine is invisible he starts to get off on the power and when all attempts to bring him back fail he starts to get violent too.

The movie has fantastic effects, which are, of course, needed in a film like this. Paul Verhoeven's direction is pacy and the script is as you would expect from a movie like this. Although Bacon is not visible for most of the movie, he plays his role excellently - so much so that you would believe he really IS invisible.

Elisabeth Shue heads up a good supporting cast which also contains a small role for Rhona Mitra (ex-Lara Croft) as one of Caine's neighbours who gets a surprise while she's undressing.

See Hollow Man if you've ever fantasised about what you would do if you were invisible!

Samuel L Jackson is the perfect person to play Shaft. He has a cool image earned from some of his previous roles, including Jules in Pulp Fiction. Jackson does a great job of playing John Shaft, nephew of Richard Roundtree's character from the 70s blaxploitation flick.

Christian Bale plays the main "baddy" in this, playing a character not too far from the one he played to good effect in American Psycho. Bale (playing Walter Wade Jr) murders a black man after baiting him in a bar and when arrested tries to impress on the cops the fact that his father is rich. He gets bail and flees the country.

Two years on Shaft gets wind of Wade coming back and arrests him again, but soon he is back out on bail and looking for the waitress who witnessed the murder (the excellent Toni Collette). Shaft must find her and convince her to testify before Wade find her and murders her.

The support of Vanessa Williams (colleague of Shaft's), Jeffrey Wright (bad guy Peoples Hernandez who helps Wade), Dan Hedaya (cop on the take) and Busta Rhymes (as one of Shaft's informers who is just priceless in this) all add dimension to the cast and even Roundtree pops up as Uncle John Shaft!

Shaft (2000) is good fun and east to watch - a typical modern day police movie. Watch out for Shaft 2 (and Shaft 3 and Shaft 4 and……….)

Erin Brockovich essentially combines two movies. The first being about a single mother of three struggling to support her kids in a materialistic country. The second being about said single mother transcending stereotypes by discovering and investigating a cover up by a large utility about the damage that their plant has caused local residents. The great achievement that director Steven Soderbergh makes is to combine these two elements seemlessly. Julia Roberts is in superb form in the titular role and her co-star, veteran Albert Finney, turns in an excellent performance. Good support comes from Aaron Eckhart as Erin's main squeeze, George and Marg Helgenberger as Donna Jensen, the woman whose Real Estate claim starts the whole thing off. The screenplay by Susannah Grant provides Roberts with lots of snappy one-liners, which I'm not quite sure the real Erin Brockovich said. But hey! It makes for more fun in the movie. I defy you to go see Erin Brockovich and leave WITHOUT a smile on your face.

American Beauty is one of those films that comes from nowhere to completely surprise and delight the cinema going public. Sam Mendes makes his directing debut with a film that shows us American suburbia and its inhabitants in all their glory.

The movie focuses on Lester Burnham, a middle aged advertising executive who hits his mid life crisis. Lester deals with this by quitting his job (and blackmailing his boss in the process), smoking pot and obsessing over his 18 year old daughter's best friend.

Much of this is documented on video tape by the son of the Burnham's new next door neighbours. Ricky Fitts always has a camcorder with him and seemingly tapes everything. His parents are a bit strange too. His mother is always in a world of her own and his father is a committed United States Marine Corps veteran and, true to stereotype, is repressed, regimented and obsessed with discipline.

The performances are excellent , Kevin Spacey, in particular, is on top form and could well be in the running for an award this year. Annette Bening is great as Burnham's wife, an uptight Estate Agent who ends up in the arms of one of her rivals. Thora Birch comes of age in this movie with a mature performance. She plays Jane Burnham, Lester's daughter, who is horrified to find her dad obsessing over her cheerleader friend (played by American Pie's Mena Suvari). The rest of the cast perform admirably - Mena Suvari is the cheerleader vamp, Peter Gallagher plays the Estate Agent shark Buddy King, Wes Bently shows promise as Ricky Fitts and his parents are played well by Chris Cooper and Allison Janney.

Watching this movie, I identified with Spacey's character. The urge to just quit your job and spend your time smoking pot, dreaming about your 18 year old daughter's school friends and working out so that you will "look good nude" has been kept in check for now - but for how long?

This Year's Love follows the (love) lives of 6 inhabitants of London's Camden area.

The movie starts a bit like Four Weddings and A Funeral. Two people in bed wake up, lay there for a moment, then realise that they're late for a wedding. The only difference is that it's their wedding!

After getting spliced, they go off to the reception. 35 minutes into wedded bliss, the groom Danny, is told by a guest that his new wife had sex with the best man. Danny confronts Hannah and blows his top before leaving.

So begins two years of "swapping" between the 6 characters.

Kathy Burke, veteran of comedy from her Harry Enfield days, plays the best character - Mary - a self proclaimed "fat bird" who is surprised at the attentions she gets from the 3 men.

Hannah is played by the gorgeous Catherine McCormack, previously seen in Braveheart. In the second section of the film, two years on from the wedding, she is flatmate to Ian Hart's emotionally (and a bit mentally) unstable character. She meets, and is seduced by, Emily Woof (from The Full Monty). Ian Hart, thinking that he stands a chance with Hannah, tries to commit suicide when her walks in on the two girls in bed.

The performances from the main cast are fine throughout and the film, whilst not being a laugh-a-minute comedy, certainly has its funny scenes. The nomadic Cameron meets his current girlfriend Sophie's rich parents and advises her father that he's not usually not too choosy about his women, in fact he'd "f*** a barber's floor".

This Year's Love is a film that will not attain the heights of other recent Brit-flicks like The Full Monty and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but still deserves its place amongst the Top 10 of the last few years' best British Independent movies.

I have been waiting for The Thin Red Line for some time now. Waiting to see what I believed would be one of the three best films of the year, along with the other two "comeback kids" new movies (George Lucas and the late Stanley Kubrick).

I went into the cinema to see The Thin Red Line full of hope.

Some ten minutes after the film had started, I knew that I was in for a long, hard time in my multiplex.

Terrence Malick hasn't directed a movie since 1978's Days of Heaven, so there was lots of hype in the press about this movie. It received critical acclaim because of it's "intelligence" and the wonderful scenery.

I found The Thin Red Line to be overlong, dull with the exception of a few good scenes and of course, extremely disappointing.

There is a spattering of good performances in the movie, but even cameos from the likes of John Travolta and George Clooney cannot save it.

Watching the Oscars ceremony - I was pleased to see that The Thin Red Line was not successful in any of the awards. I believe that it would not have been deserved.

You've Got Mail is an enjoyable enough film with good performances from the leads - Hanks and Ryan, but I can't help feeling that it's just a rehash (not just of The Shop Around The Corner) but of many other recent rom-coms (many of which Ryan has starred in!).

The e-mail premise to the movie gives it a hi-tech edge, but even then it only plays a small part in the storyline, albeit an important part.

You've Got Mail is an enjoyable distraction but that's about all!

La Vita e Bella is an extraordinary film. Not many films can make you laugh as much as you cry - but this certainly is one of them. Roberto Benigni (the Robin Williams of Italian cinema) is wonderful in the lead role and has done a fantastic job with the directing and script, too. His real life wife, Nicoletta Braschi, is great as his wife who, although she herself is not Jewish, demands to be taken to the camp with him. Credit must also go to little Giorgio Cantarini who is brilliant as Giosue (Joshua), Benigni's son, who he tries to shield from the horrors of the holocaust. The film starts in typical slapstick Benigni fashion in 1939 Italy as Guido and his friend Ferruccio go to Arezzo, a Tuscan town. On the way, Guido meets Dora, a schoolteacher, and falls for her. Once they arrive in town, Guido and Dora meet again on a number of occasions, each time Guido surprises Dora - his "principessa". Although Dora is engaged to another man, he still fights for her and eventually wins her over in a memorable scene which uses so many set pieces that have been set up in the previous 30 minutes. The film continues 5 years later and now Guido and Dora are married and have a little boy called Giosue. This is where the film begins to get a little dark as Giudo, Giosue and Dora are taken to a concentration camp and the men and women are seperated. Guido pretends to Giosue that it is all a game and that they must obtain 1000 points to win the prize of a real tank. Schindler's List was a very powerful film and had very graphic scenes portraying the holocaust. Benigni does not show as many graphic scenes but you can still feel the pain and suffering. La Vita e Bella should win the Oscar for Best Picture - but unfortunately I don't think it will as Hollywood is bound to overlook the most powerful, funny and emotional film of all the nominees.