Filmography
Mar. 4th, 2007 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyThe Truman Show
I didn't see this when it came out originally and only caught up with it last night. Everyone, I presume, knows the premise - a man is adopted by a corporation at birth, and his life is filmed and televised. The program is funded by product placement. Everyone is an actor. The story covers Truman's process of discovery that he lives in a bubble (quite literally); it finishes with his decision to walk off set. On live television.
I know that the time this raised a lot of interesting questions about reality television and the concept of God and control and predestination and all of that... but to be honest, I didn't find it that gripping. Jim Carrey does a nice job as Truman, and Christof, the mastermind behind the show, is well handled by Ed Harris. But really? This didn't say a great deal to me that I hadn't already thought of. Three stars for the nice handling and clean filmic lines, but not much more really to say about it than that.
I'm Alright Jack
Four stars. This is GREAT if you are me, because it features all the wonderful actors that I grew up with - Peter Sellers, Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, John Le Mesurier... particularly Terry-Thomas as the factory manager and John Le Mesurier as the Time and Motion man, although Peter Sellers does a good job of the shop steward and Ian Carmichael isn't bad as the young man, Stanley Windrush, who starts off a huge national strike, and Margaret Rutherford is his aristocratic straight-out-of-the-top-draw-er aunt. Obviously the film plays very heavily on the social strains that were in play in British society during the 1960s, so the friction between the labour union movements and 'the bosses', with a hint at the undertones of communism. Windrush functions as a general huge prod at the sophisticated manouverings all these bodies were involved in, as his completely naivite means he misses the point of all of it, then gets very upset when he realises he has been had and used as a pawn. He ends up retreating to a naturist retreat. It's a delight if you happen to enjoy films of this period, but otherwise it'll probably just drive you round the twist.
Shaolin Soccer
Four stars. The plot - essentially a failed football star pulls together a team of ex-Shaolin monks to use their kung foo skillz to win a soccer tournament. That the main rival to the Shaolin team is called Team Evil probably makes it clear what the general level of silliness is here. There is a lot of silliness, a lot of general idiocy in terms of boys being boys and fighting between gangs and so forth. But within this, there are some absolutely beautiful shots - for instance, when the love interest (who gets it all wrong when she tries to do a make-over) makes sweet rolls , there's a lovely sequence of her revealing her kung fu master skills that attracts the hero to her; the football shots using kung foo are pretty; the team Shaolin Soccer face in the semi-finals are girls with face paint who look remarkably like Jack Sparrow (dreadlocks and so forth), and thus the scene with them in was gorgeous. When the monk with the super foot is trying to learn control and is kicking an egg, again, the shot composition is beautiful.
However, obviously it's a wee bit shallow and a bit silly. I did watch the subbed original version rather than the cut made for the American cinema, but all the same, there's a lot of rather puerile humour that makes for more of a fun, very silly film than anything particularly clever. I you want a good laugh with some vaguely cultural overtones and a not-too-soppy love-story, it's a good choice, and the occasional moments of beautiful imagery is icing on the text.
I didn't see this when it came out originally and only caught up with it last night. Everyone, I presume, knows the premise - a man is adopted by a corporation at birth, and his life is filmed and televised. The program is funded by product placement. Everyone is an actor. The story covers Truman's process of discovery that he lives in a bubble (quite literally); it finishes with his decision to walk off set. On live television.
I know that the time this raised a lot of interesting questions about reality television and the concept of God and control and predestination and all of that... but to be honest, I didn't find it that gripping. Jim Carrey does a nice job as Truman, and Christof, the mastermind behind the show, is well handled by Ed Harris. But really? This didn't say a great deal to me that I hadn't already thought of. Three stars for the nice handling and clean filmic lines, but not much more really to say about it than that.
I'm Alright Jack
Four stars. This is GREAT if you are me, because it features all the wonderful actors that I grew up with - Peter Sellers, Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, John Le Mesurier... particularly Terry-Thomas as the factory manager and John Le Mesurier as the Time and Motion man, although Peter Sellers does a good job of the shop steward and Ian Carmichael isn't bad as the young man, Stanley Windrush, who starts off a huge national strike, and Margaret Rutherford is his aristocratic straight-out-of-the-top-draw-er aunt. Obviously the film plays very heavily on the social strains that were in play in British society during the 1960s, so the friction between the labour union movements and 'the bosses', with a hint at the undertones of communism. Windrush functions as a general huge prod at the sophisticated manouverings all these bodies were involved in, as his completely naivite means he misses the point of all of it, then gets very upset when he realises he has been had and used as a pawn. He ends up retreating to a naturist retreat. It's a delight if you happen to enjoy films of this period, but otherwise it'll probably just drive you round the twist.
Shaolin Soccer
Four stars. The plot - essentially a failed football star pulls together a team of ex-Shaolin monks to use their kung foo skillz to win a soccer tournament. That the main rival to the Shaolin team is called Team Evil probably makes it clear what the general level of silliness is here. There is a lot of silliness, a lot of general idiocy in terms of boys being boys and fighting between gangs and so forth. But within this, there are some absolutely beautiful shots - for instance, when the love interest (who gets it all wrong when she tries to do a make-over) makes sweet rolls , there's a lovely sequence of her revealing her kung fu master skills that attracts the hero to her; the football shots using kung foo are pretty; the team Shaolin Soccer face in the semi-finals are girls with face paint who look remarkably like Jack Sparrow (dreadlocks and so forth), and thus the scene with them in was gorgeous. When the monk with the super foot is trying to learn control and is kicking an egg, again, the shot composition is beautiful.
However, obviously it's a wee bit shallow and a bit silly. I did watch the subbed original version rather than the cut made for the American cinema, but all the same, there's a lot of rather puerile humour that makes for more of a fun, very silly film than anything particularly clever. I you want a good laugh with some vaguely cultural overtones and a not-too-soppy love-story, it's a good choice, and the occasional moments of beautiful imagery is icing on the text.
