Reviews

The Deadly Companions was Sam Peckinpah's directorial debut. It's a western filmed in Arizona. Clearly he was no master of his medium when he made it, but it contains most of the dominant themes. Here we find the chase/quest which creates conflicts for the main character. Here too the connection of violence to children shown in his great movie, The Wild Bunch. And themes of loyalty/betrayal are also touched on. As in The Getaway, the heroine is a tough dangerous woman not afraid to kill to achieve her goal, but also capable of love even under horrendous conditions. Peckinpah's begins his celebration of violence in The Deadly Companions, but does not do it well yet. Some of the acting and much of the plot is laughable, but a fan of Peckinpah's work will want to see The Deadly Companions.

Open Water is one of those rare movies that tells a straightforward story in a straightforward way because that it is the only way it can be told. I rate it excellent because the film-makers have understood this and done their level best to get out of the way. The movie contains what it needs to contain. We hear film-makers talk about how they achieved this effect or suggested that emotion. There is no need for any of that in this movie and, to the credit of the film-makers, there is none of it.This movie is a true horror movie because it describes events that not only could happen but actually do happen practically every day. Because of this, this is a movie everybody should see once. Entertainment has nothing to do with it.

Margaret Atwood novels have not fared well as movies because she is far more interested in ideas than stories. The Handmaid's Tale had such powerful ideas it wasn't surprising the movie version disappointed. I'm not sure if Atwood was trying to write a comic novel when she wrote Robber Bride or trying to get as close as she could to a mystery novel. As with so many of her efforts, she wasn't successful at either, but the quality of her work makes reading her worthwhile anyway. CBC was pretty daring even to try to turn the novel into a TV movie. They chose the easy way out and turned it into a comic thriller. It works as well as other comic thrillers, better than the recent CTV adaptations of detective novels. It is the acting by Mary-Louise Parker, Amanda Root and others which earned it an above-average rating for me. Maybe with more money they could have turned it into a good cinema film.

Because I lived in Sierra Leone, in fact in Kono, the diamond-mining area of the country, for three years, I had to see Blood Diamond as soon as it came out. It is an excellent movie. Although it was not filmed in Sierra Leone, it captures the reality of the country to a remarkable degree. There is a great deal of violence in this movie, but that violence is organic, realistic, fitting to what happened there. They even manage to convey the fact that the people are as astonished by this violence as we are; Sierra Leone used to be one of the safest countries in the world. The movie tells the facts about conflict diamonds quickly and accurately. DiCaprio's performance is impressive, certainly the best by him I've ever seen: he is totally believable as a white African. Jennifer Connelly's role is much smaller but she makes the most of it. Djiman Housou has enormous physical presence as the brave Mende fisherman. This movie just gets so many things right that the few places it departs from reality are entirely forgivable. I would heartily recommend this movie to everyone; it is the best Hollywood movie I've seen in years.

I wish to comment about this movie mainly as someone who lived in Sierra Leone for three years. This movie contributed greatly to knowledge of even the existence of this country around the world and to the correct pronunciation of its name. Sadly the brutal civil war fought there and the reality of "blood diamonds" have also made Sierra Leone much better known today than when I lived there. Then the people of Sierra Leone were friendly, kind and welcoming. They were aware of the history of slavery mainly because of the small Krio population living in Freetown. The Krio were the returned slaves, the first group known as Nova Scotians because they were brought there by way of Nova Scotia. Though really a very small group, the Krio have a disproportionate influence in the country. The Krio language, what we often call pidgin English, is probably the most commonly spoken today. The movie tells of the tribal wars which were part of the history of the country and the slavery which existed throughout much of Africa. I did hear the few Mende words I remember during the movie. The handshake at the end of the movie is, in fact, the handshake used in Sierra Leone when I lived there.

This movie is a mix of Marx Brothers, Jacques Tati, Monty Python-set in a world of gypsies and mobsters living on the Danube--with the Wrong Box, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and My Big Fat Balkan Wedding thrown in for good measure. Marko is a Groucho Marx-like figure whose schemes just shove him and his family deeper. Her turns to two gangsters, Mafia godfathers: one is a sick old man who wears a combination Star of David, Crescent and Cross around his neck, watched Casablanca over and over and gets around in a motorized wheelchair. The other is more flamboyant, has lots of gold chains and keeps his cocaine in a crucifix. This one cheats Marko and then demands that Marko's son Zara marry his only unmarried sister, Afrodita. But Zara is in love with blond and very modern gypsy. Unlike the Marx movies, the young love interest adds rather than detracts. Be warned: you'll read obscenities in the subtitles and see animals fornicating. There are bizarre juxtapositions of contemporary objects with "primitive" realities of the setting--and lots and lots of geese.

I cannot recall having even heard of this movie until I saw it advertised in the TV listings as part of a series of British movies otherwise unrelated to each other in any way. The cast is wonderful particularly Denholm Elliot. Alan Bates gives the part the bland vacancy it requires. The song that opens the movie was of its time and was so bad I almost stopped watching. And the rest of the movie is never quite right. The movie tries to tell the story that Lindsay Anderson told so well in O Lucky Man, and falls far short...but most movies fall short of O Lucky Man. It's worth seeing for another reason: it illustrates very well the mentality that led to Margaret Thatcher.

The main idea of this movie was so intriguing, I decided to watch it: a very sexually active young man is so frustrated by his life that he decides to give up sex for lent then meets the girl of his dreams. It provides an opportunity to explore ideas: the true value of sex in a relationship, questions of openness and honesty. Will the girl be understanding and patient? How will other people react? The movie actually meets all these expectations but apart from the man and the girl themselves (to a certain extent) it does it in such a crude destructive way as to spoil the experience. It has its moments, but the humour just didn't work for me.

The Heart of the Beholder is the story of a dreamer who finally achieved one of his dreams: his own business, a chain of video stores in St. Louis, Mo, only to be driven out of business by a group of fanatics who are outraged when he won't remove The Last Temptation of Christ from the shelves of his stores. It is, as they say, based on real events. In fact, the movie was written and directed by the man himself on the advice, he says, of Robert Wise. Undertaking the project helped in his recovery process. At the time I write this, he is having trouble getting distribution for the movie.

This is a story that needed to be told. The trouble is that the movie isn't very good, more like a worse than average TV movie. The actors in the main roles don't quite pull it off. Michael Dorn in wasted in a small role. Greg Germann's performance is the best in the movie.

This is definitely a movie to see on DVD because all the background information is what makes it interesting. We learn that the most unlikely things depicted in the movie actually did happen. Freedom of speech is everywhere under threat so everybody should either see this movie or read about the story on-line.

Possession resembles The French Lieutenants Woman in that it tells two parallel stories, one set in the present and one in the past. Both stories involve the world of literature with the modern story taking place in the world of academia. I really enjoyed this movie because this idea is inherently fascinating and, I suspect, the movie succeeds because the story on which it is based is so strong. It has problems, mainly the recycling of clichés: clichés about the differences between Americans and Brits, and clichés about the world of literary studies. Both sets of clichés are pretty much garbage and as a one-time participant in the world of literary studies, I found that aspect of the movie pretty painful. Another reviewer has commented on the way supposed academics in this movie treat and handle original documents! People who behave in this way -- and it has happened -- become pariahs in the real academic world. The study of the biographies of authors is really only a tiny part of literary studies, but it is probably the most interesting to people outside that life. The actors playing the contemporary couple are not nearly as successful as those playing the historic pair, but they're good enough. This story could have been made into a better movie, but this one is more than good enough.

I'm a Canadian. I was born and grew up in the Niagara Region and have viewed the Falls hundreds if not thousands of times. That why I had to borrow this movie and view it. I really enjoyed it. The two main actors put in impressive performances and they are the heart and soul of the movie. But as another commentary says,parts BORDER on the incredible. The film-makers made absolutely no attempt to inject any Canadian reality into the section of the movie set in Canada. Toronto is a 2-hour coach ride from Niagara Falls. As to why they wouldn't just go to nearby Buffalo, I'll assume that was because of their obsessiveness. The store employees supposedly in a Toronto shopping plaza spoke with American accents. The Police uniforms are wrong and Canadian police equipment is different in a respect that might, however, effect the plot so I won't be specific. Maybe my criticism really belongs in your errors department.

My Dog Skip tells the story of a young nerd growing up in the southern US during World War II. He acquires a dog which turns his life around. It is a very kind-hearted entertaining movie. It raised some questions for me which make me want to read the original material, "true story" on which it was based. The boy's father is a veteran of the Spanish Civil War which would make him a "leftie" or a "Commmie"-would he really have been welcomed back in small southern town? The movie cleverly reverses the usual by making the mother the one who is pushing the boy toward boyhood while the father wants to protect him. He is given a "girlfriend"; is this modern cliché for real? It seems the gang of young thugs are just trying to help him become a boy: I'm skeptical about that too. In one scene the two children are shown riding their Schwinn bicycles on the sidewalk under the benevolent eyes of adults. Riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is an 21st century habit still against the law. I don't believe it would have been tolerated in the film's era. If you like this film, you might like the French movies My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle.

Where the Heart is a solid heart-warming American movie. I am not an American and I am not overly fond of American movies. Usually they are technically brilliant but phony. Where the Heart Is manages to achieve emotional contact but pulls back just enough from most of the phoniness. The heroine becomes slightly famous for giving birth at Wal-mart but not hugely famous. By the way, I hate Wal-mart but it's use in this movie is part of American reality. I could give example after example of this kind of restraint throughout the movie. There have been American movies like Where the Heart Is, movies which touch on the realities of American life but still entertain; Junior Bonner is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. The female cast is strong, but the men also make a contribution. The movie has humour, restraint and charm. Occasionally there's a misstep and one often wonders how the two parallel stories are going to connect, but it all works in the end.