Pieces of a Man Think it. Do it. Be it. Embellish.

2003: 2004: 2005: 2006: 2007: 2008:

91.92.93.94.95.96 97.98.99.00.01.02 07.08.09.10.11.12 01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12 01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12 01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12 01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12 01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08

Finally got the wireless up and running on the laptop with the help of an upgrade to Windows XP and now I'm here multi-tasking - downloading upgrades, blogging, editing webpages and watching 'Trading Places'. What a classic - Eddie Murphy farting in the tub and demonstrating the Bruce Lee 'Quart of Blood' technique in prison;

Prisoner: "Tell us how you cut him."

Billy Ray: "Hey, I didn't cut him with no knife, man."

Prisoner: "But you told me last night you cut the dude."

Billy Ray: "It was with these I cut him (shows hands). I am a chang belt in Kung Fu. Bruce Lee was my teacher. Watch this. Woop! HAA! Agai! Woop! Woop! Agai! Ayahhhh! Woop! Iguh! Hiya! Woo! Woo! Ha! Ha! Woop! Agai! Bin! Ha! Haaaaaaaaaa... Watah! Tidah! That's called the quart of blood technique. You do that, a quart of blood will drop out of a person's body.

Brilliant, and just what I need after today's 6-hour perfect storm of management meetings left me like a vegetable.

Labels: Movies

Techie but funny; Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox, 'Usability in the Movies';

Break into a company -- possibly in a foreign country or on an alien planet -- and step up to the computer. How long does it take you to figure out the UI and use the new applications for the first time? Less than a minute if you're a movie star. The fact that all user interfaces are walk-up-and-use is probably the single most unrealistic aspect of how movies depict computers. In reality, we know all too well that even the smartest users have plenty of problems using even the best designs, let alone the degraded usability typically found in in-house MIS systems or industrial control rooms.

Labels: Movies

The Beeb have created a Kermode review advent calendar. The Da Vinci Code rant is fun, but it's the controlled wrath directed at Little Man that intrigues. For a Wayans brothers' comedy, I'm intrigued to know how it could be so 'downright evil'.

Labels: Movies

This is so bizarre it's beyond Seinfeld;

The comic actor Michael Richards, better known as Cosmo Kramer in the long-running TV show Seinfeld, has apologised for a racist outburst that was captured on film and broadcast across the US. Richards, 57, took exception when some black audience members talked during his act at a Los Angeles comedy club on Friday. In the recording, Richards says from the stage: "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass."

Watch the rant (YouTube) | Read the article (Guardian)

Labels: Movies

As well as the wholesome family fare below, Film Four is also currently showing 'The Aristocrats', a wicked documentary featuring comedians talking about and telling their versions of a famous joke:

The Aristocrats is a joke that has been told by numerous stand-up comedians since the vaudeville era. Steven Wright has likened it to a secret handshake among comedians, and it is seen as something of a game in which those who tell it try to top each other in terms of shock value. It is rarely told the same way twice, often improvised, and was the subject of a 2005 documentary film of the same name. Throughout its long history, it has evolved from a clichéd staple of vaudevillian humor into a postmodern anti-joke.

Find out more - including a sample telling of the joke - on Wikipedia. Warning: PG (Parental guidance) rating - guide your parents elsewhere!

Labels: Movies

Who says nothing good ever came out of Stockport? Spike commands the station approach. It's a sign.

Labels: Movies

Here we are waiting for a delivery that's been anticipated for 9 months, when something else arrived this morning that was a complete surprise. I won a competition. Yes, me! The Stockport Times' Spike Lee competition, to be precise.

It spotted it when I was waiting to pick up a Chinese last Saturday and flicking through the local rag on the counter. The massively difficult entry question was "How many films are there in the 5 DVD Spike Lee box set?"  The question kinda suggests the audience demographic here in SK2 so I figured 'Why not?'; hardly likely to be overwhelmed by entries.

The full breakdown of the booty in the Spike Lee Joint Collection is as follows; I'm most pleased to get hold of Crooklyn, which I've wanted for years in European format. What a result! Now where's that lottery ticket?

Labels: Movies

We're getting much amusement from the mere title of Hollywood's latest trashy summer offering - Snakes on a Plane. What a brilliant concept! Samuel Jackson, who's starring in it, also realised this right from the start;

At one point, the film's working title was altered to 'Pacific Air Flight 121'. A perturbed Samuel L. Jackson told an interviewer, "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title." In another interview Jackson claimed that once he learned about the movie title being changed he said: "What are you doing here? It's not Gone with the Wind. It's not On the Waterfront. It's Snakes on a Plane!" The film was soon reverted to the working title of 'Snakes on a Plane'.

In our house, snakes are right up there with rats and wolves as emblems of excitement, so we've immediately taken to using the phrase around the house anytime sudden exclamation is required. Toast burning? Snakes on a plane! Cherry cakes in the fridge? Snakes on a plane!

I was therefore intrigued to read that others are as thrilled we are, and that the phrase is entering the language from other directions, too. Check out other hilarious definitions of 'Snakes on a Plane' at Urban Dictionary.

Labels: Movies

Nothing for ages, then two come along at once - there's an interesting looking film showing at the Cornerhouse this weekend called Football as Never Before:

"Old Trafford, 12/9/70, as a middling Manchester United beat Coventry, eight 16mm cameras were trained by a German experimental filmmaker on United's number 11: the legendary George Best. Shot, edited and framed so that hardly any other players are visible, Best's beauty on the pitch is captured forever. In the year of his death, surely there can be no better tribute."

However, the current plan for this weekend - alongside Ice Age 2 later today - is to see if Dad wants to go along to Printworks tonight to check out the new film about the rise of New York Cosmos, Once in a Lifetime. Give me 1970s New York over 1960s Manchester anytime, George Best's brilliance notwithstanding.

And the two degrees of Kevin Bacon? According to today's Guardian, Pele was actually approached by United around that time;

"Pele belatedly revealed that he turned down an offer to join the club in the year of their first European Cup success. The most famous sporting icon on the planet claimed he was given the chance to team up with George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton in what would have been the most formidable attacking line-up of any squad in history." More...

Labels: Movies

Spike Lee's next film is going to be a biopic about Joe Louis;

Spike Lee's next film will be a biopic of the 1930s heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis starring Terrence Howard, according to US reports. Lee told a university audience in Detroit that he planned to begin work on a film about the man known as the Brown Bomber after he finishes work on the Hurricane Katrina documentary which he is currently completing.

Labels: Movies

Article about the marketing of Brokeback Mountain, describing how it's rise was fuelled by surgically targeting where the movie would play in its initial release and by selling it as a romance for women rather than a controversial gay-bashing tale.

Labels: Movies

The BBC plans to mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ this Easter with an hour-long live procession through the streets of Manchester featuring pop stars from The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and featuring songs by The Smiths and New Order.

The "contemporary retelling" of Jesus' last hours will begin with the messiah - who is yet to be cast - singing the Robbie Williams hit Angels, which will mark his procession into Jerusalem. The climax of the event sees Jesus sing the Smiths classic song Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now as he is being flayed by Roman soldiers. Read more

Labels: Movies

Warner Brothers have streamed a film direct to Japanese cinemas for the first time; it was Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride. How long until it's available straight to keitai? Which reminds me, I've been watching the recent O₂ ad campaign and looking forward to finding out what i-mode is all about. I remember reading an article by Jakob Nielsen a few years back which sang its praises, particularly for the ease with which it made micropayment possible. Unfortunately, micropayments are all I can afford.

Labels: Movies

Tonight's session at the Cornerhouse was another box of delights. Looking back at last week's Ride the High Country, we discovered how it exploited our expectations of the Western genre to mourn the passing of the mythical West; an early scene, for example, where a car unexpectedly rolls through a shot.

Opinions differed on the female character in the film, a naive, closeted preacher's daughter who has to be saved from the unwanted attentions of her fiancee's depraved brothers. I was rather chuffed to be the only person who had seen any other Peckinpah films - Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia and Straw Dogs - and was able to point out the use of sexual violence in all three works, sparking a short discussion about how Peckinpah's misogyny divides audiences.

After a short break spent hovering over cut-price sushi for Jo in the nearby Sainsbury's wandering whether to chance its freshness for a couple more hours, we finished up on genre by looking at horror; vampire films to be exact.

The lecturer - Andy Willis of Salford University - did a clever thing here, and as a trainer I was full of admiration. First we watched a clip of Dracula from the 50s with Christopher Lee and spent ten minutes focussing on the iconography - garlic, crosses, virgins, bats. Then we were told we were going to watch an unnamed modern vampire movie, and were again invited to predict. The inevitable guessing included Lost Boys, Blade and Buffy, but it turned out to be Mr Vampire 2, a goofy Chinese vampire film; not what we were expecting at all.

It was a brilliant move, elegantly highlighting the culture-specific dimension of genre and finishing the session with a flourish.

Labels: Movies

Labels: Movies

Spike Lee's Bamboozled (2002) is the cinematic equivalent of getting hit over the head with a baseball bat. It stops you in your tracks.

It involves a smart, slick, black TV exec who has to come up with something new and 'more black'. Intending to undermine his bosses intentions, he creates a Minstrel-type review called Mantan with every racist cliche you can imagine; blackface, slaves, watermelon patches and more. Unfortunately the show becomes a huge hit...

One of Lee's points is that black Americans are partly responsible for perpetuating racist stereotypes; I noticed that it was black audience members initially reacting positively to Mantan. Later on there's also a faux commercial for a liquor called 'Da Bomb'. Even the bottle is missile-shaped and the ad could easily be a gangster rap video with the hip-hop, bling and booty-shakin'. Spike takes aim and ... BOOM!

The most unsettling scene for me is a pastiche of cultural appropriation where the black warm-up MC, dressed as Uncle Sam, hops about amongst the significantly white audience - who by this point in the film are ALL coming to the show in blackface - theatrically screaming at each and savouring every syllable, "IS YOOOOOU A NIG-GERRRRR?". A middle-aged Jewish woman shrieks with delight as it drips from his lips; it's chilling. BOOM!

No other film I can immediately think of provokes fascination and discomfort in equal measure. Only Spike Lee could do this, and only Spike Lee could get away with it.

NB: Lee is planning a new documentary about the handling of Hurricane Katrina:

No stranger to controversy, Lee has already stated his suspicion that the authorities were somehow involved in the flooding.

Labels: Movies

Macdonalds is entering the DVD rental market with a plan to exploit it's existing infrastructure to offer very flexible pick up, payment and drop off at its restaurants. It clearly kicks Blockbuster into a cocked hat, but the question is whether the immediacy outweighs the greater flexibility of postal rental (ironic on this side of the pond that they have chosen the name RedBox for the McService).

Labels: Movies

Today is week 3 of my film studies course at the Cornerhouse in Manchester. So far we've looked at mise-en-scene (picking apart the introduction to a Douglas Sirk film, All that Heaven Allows) and Auteur Theory (looking at Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho).

Tonight, however, is the first full course screening; Sam Peckinpah's Western, Ride the High Country. The 'homework' was to consider our expectations of the genre in advance of the screening, so I watched a Channel 5 stock western over the weekend to get the schema going;

SETTINGS

• One-horse town (saloon, hotel, barbershop)
• Ranch or farm
• US South-west/Mexico
• Fort
• Railroad
• Prairie, mountains, plains, desert
• Environment hostile and threatening

EVENTS

• Indian attack
• Chase
• Double-crossing
• Fistfight
• Shootout
• The ride west
• Gold rush

CHARACTERS

• Hero - male, white, 30s-40s, strong but silent, fights for good, brave, loner, itinerant, prevails through violence
• Villain - indians, outlaw dressed in black, landowners, bandits.
• Women - Good women: weak, pure, domesticated, needing protection, shown in soft focus. Bad women - town whore, busty, kind-hearted but immoral.
• Stranger in town
• Gambler
• Town drunk
• Sheriff
• Cavalry

THEMES

• Vengeance
• Justice
• Small man vs the government
• Good vs evil
• Threat of 'other' (e.g. indians)
• USA defending the world
• Moral decay
• Individualism
• Urban vs rural
• Modern vs traditional

Labels: Movies

Sideways (2004) is a poignant mid-life crisis movie about growth and change, which sees college buddies Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on one last hurrah before Jack gets hitched. Intense Miles, preoccupied with a publisher's decision on his first novel and still unable to come to terms with a divorce, and is a dead-weight to care-free Jack, who's just desperate to get laid one last time. The ensuing problems bring to mind Swingers and are used as a means to explore the tensions that time bring to friendships of our youth. It's routine stuff - Jack's bravado is exposed, new hope suggests itself for Miles - and the romantic interest is rather weak, but nonetheless it's an occasionally touching excursion in the Napa Valley.

Labels: Movies

Wallace and Gromit's new feature-length smash, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, is a brilliant homage to classic horror from Hallam old boy Nick Park. It has simple narrative and slapstick for the kids, but it's also a sharp intertextual feast for grown-ups, referencing films like King Kong, The Fly and (of course) American Werewolf in London. I especially loved the angry Frankenstein mob of Northern villagers running around with pitchforks, led by the hysterical vicar. Another Oscar is in the post.

Labels: Movies

James Earl Jones' reminiscences on the making of Dr Strangelove comment on the troubled working relationship of George C. Scott and Stanley Kubrick;

The irresistible force met the immovable object when Stanley asked George to do over-the-top performances of his lines. He said it would help George to warm up for his satiric takes. George hated this idea. He said it was unprofessional and made him feel silly. George eventually agreed to do his scenes over-the-top when Stanley promised that his performance would never be seen by anyone but himself and the cast and crew. But Kubrick ultimately used many of these 'warm-ups' in the final cut. George felt used and manipulated by Stanley and swore he would never work with him again.

Labels: Movies

This 2004 road movie from Walter Salles is apparently based on Ché Guevara's account of a trip he took in his 20s. Lush scenery, attractive protagonists and some amusing incidents and characters; I loved the dance parties in the villages. Where it falls short is in assumed knowledge of its subject. For example, Che and his pal turn up at a mine to harangue the bosses and demonstrate their evolving revolutionary credentials. Why? Who knows? We can fills in some gaps through the knowledge we bring, but we don't get much commentary. As in life and T-shirts, Ché Guevara probably remains an icon and a blank canvas for many.

Labels: Movies

Mark Kermode describes 'one of the most bizarre own goals in recent cinema history' ... Mario Van Peebles' admission that he was involved in a sex scene at about the age of 14 in his father Melvin's classic, Sweet Sweetback's Baad-Asssss Song. The film has now been censored. Doh!

Labels: Movies

A film of the James Herbert book, The Fog, is coming out soon (in the States at least). I read that book when I was about 14 and some images were burnt in my memory forever. I wonder, for example, if the movie will recreate the schoolkids hanging their teacher up on the bars of the gym and chopping off the part of him he'd need for making his own little future schoolchildren. I doubt it.

Labels: Movies

Roberto Benigni seems to be making a follow-up to the great Life is Beautiful. Again co-starring his wife, Nicoletta Braschi, The Tiger and the Snow is another comedy in an unlikely setting, this time present-day Iraq.

Labels: Movies

This is priceless. I posted a link a couple of months back to an article describing how trailers are nonsense, and how any film, no matter how crap, could be made to look interesting. On a similar tack, this guy in LA has cut a trailer for The Shining, only it makes it look a little different...

In his hands, it became a saccharine comedy about a writer struggling to find his muse and a boy lonely for a father. Gilding the lily, he even set it against 'Solsbury Hill', the way-too-overused Peter Gabriel song heard in comedies billed as life-changing experiences, like last year's 'In Good Company'.

Watch the trailer (.mov)

Update: Guardian Film article on how to manipulate a movie poster campaign when desperate for decent comments...

Labels: Movies

Since Manchester's Filmworks shamefully abandoned their weekend kid's special showings, it's been hard to do regular cinema treats with Yani and Oscar, as I'd like. However, Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle may be about to sail to the rescue this weekend (if I can find the Billy Crystal dubbed version instead of the subtitled Japanese).

Hayao Miyazaki is the 64-year-old Japanese animation genius whose mastery of the form has, through a piquant turn of fate, come to its full flowering just as his craft is on the verge of becoming forever obsolete. I came relatively late to his rich, kaleidoscopic fantasies, having been baffled but intrigued by his Princess Mononoke, and then utterly bowled over by his great movie Spirited Away. Howl's Moving Castle has worked its charm on me as well: a floatingly delightful fairytale with its heart set on repealing the law of gravity.

The film is based on a book by someone called Diana Wynne Jones, I notice, surely a relative of Delia's chain smoking spouse, Michael?

Labels: Movies

Sony have been caught bang to rights making up positive reviews about their movies and fined nearly a million pounds. Is this really that big a deal? Most of the reviews you see in the mainstream are written by tabloid hacks who are on a drip feed of perks like attending launches and they're not going to bite the hand that feeds by writing anything sensible anyway. Bullsh*t.

Labels: Movies

Article and interview about Johnny Depp:

I made a decision that I would only do the things that I wanted to, that I found interesting and thought I could bring something to. It's still shocking to me that I can work.

Labels: Movies

Seminal criticism of the corporatisation of Hollywood by Pauline Kael;

This is one of the angriest rants against business-as-usual in the film industry ever written - and one of the most lethally accurate, I always believed, since it stemmed from Kael's experience in working as a kind of senior development executive at Paramount Pictures. Her piece was seen at the time as a kind of obituary for the golden era of expressionism American movies had enjoyed from the late '60s to mid '70s, which was pretty much killed off by the marketing revolution brought about by the wide release of Jaws in 1975 and the growing corporate influence upon the filmmaking process that followed.

Labels: Movies

Spike Lee answers email questions from Independent readers.

I still think that until this country deals with slavery it's never going to get to the place where it needs to be. There's great trepidation on both sides, black and white, to deal with slavery. There's guilt, blame, shame, everything. People like to forget about it like it never happened.

Labels: Movies

Coinciding with his new biography, there's a Spike Lee feature on Radio 4's Film Programme (available until next Saturday);

As a new biography of Spike Lee is published, Francine Stock discusses the career of the African American film-maker with Kaleem Aftab, author of the biography, and to Gaylene Gould of the British Film Institute.

Labels: Movies

Roger Ebert has been given his own star on the Walk of Fame. Thoroughly deserved. The only time his advice ever failed me was when he gave only 2 stars out of 4 in his review of Pulp Fiction, but apart from that I couldn't imagine having watched films the last 10 years or so without him.

Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert might not be a movie star but his work has been so memorable that he has earned his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ebert was named the Chicago Sun-Times film critic six months after joining the paper in 1966. In 1975, he became the first film critic to receive a Pulitzer prize for arts criticism.

Labels: Movies

We watched one of the extras on the DVD of The Incredibles last night. It's part of the film that never made the final cut and got developed instead as a short called Jack Jack Attacks. In it the babysitter discovers some the baby's hidden powers that never get seen in the film.

Generally it's very funny, but one part of it is quite disturbing where the baby bursts into a ball of flames. It happens several times - and I discovered on the web that there's a name for this, Pyrokinesis - but as I watched it I couldn't help think about Jamie Bulger and Child's Play 3, the video (they say) influenced the two children who murdered him.

I wondered what Oscar was thinking while watching this, and could imagine him setting fire to dolls as a result if he could get hold of matches (especially since his father was something of a well-known pyromaniac in younger years).

I also wondered if Pixar have thought of this - perhaps it was the reason the scene got pulled from the film. I'm surprised that they would want to risk it at all, anywhere. All it would take is one incident for the media to be able to whip up some pretty bad PR around their wholesome product.

Labels: Movies

Debates over the best film of all time tend to go no further than Hollywood classics such as Citizen Kane. But the influential Halliwell's Film Guide now says the title belongs to Tokyo Story, a little-known Japanese film in which nothing much happens.

Labels: Movies

Proof that trailers mean nothing;

"Trailers are full of deception because what they want you to do is to see the movie they want you to see, not the movie that it is. The only way to see the movie that it is is to go see the movie."

Labels: Movies

If there's any justice in Middle Earth then the hobbits should have spared at least one Oscar for Lost in Translation, which was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.

It's disrespectful to call Sofia Coppola's surprise hit a romantic comedy; it's sophisticated, moving and thoughtful in a way that's far beyond the usual Hollywood dross. It would be inaccurate too, since the romance is uncertain and the comedy somewhat secondary.

Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, an ageing Hollywood actor filming a lucrative whisky commercial in Japan (as many stars have secretly done before - check out japander.com for a laugh). As we see Bob tiredly discussing carpet and wallpaper with his wife back in the States, we realise he is also stuck in a marriage that's lost its spark.

Jetlagged and drowning his sorrows in the hotel bar, Bob falls into conversation with sensitive young philosophy graduate Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson). Neglected by her photographer husband, she passes the time listening to self-help CDs in her room and wondering what she wants out of life.

Both are at personal crossroads and feeling lost in different ways, but over several days together affection develops as they help each other pass the time.

Japan provides the perfect backdrop for the story. Not only is it culturally both familiar and baffling in a way that mirrors the characters' inner confusions, but their excursions into the frantic, neon nightscape of Tokyo are a rich source of humour, too.

We see Bob undergoing the humiliation of a Banzai-style game show, grappling with the intricacies of Japanese cuisine ("What kind of restaurant is it that makes you cook your own food?") and bewildered by a prostitute with poor pronunciation ("Lip my stockings, Mr Bob-san, lip them!").

The filming of the whisky ad is perhaps the funniest scene. The crazed director harasses Bob at length in Japanese, intent that he evoke Roger Moore's 007 and sip his whisky with ever more ridiculous intensity. Bob just wishes it were real whisky; Bill Murray's trademark weariness has never been more effective. (Coppola reputedly stalked him for a year to make the film and wouldn't have done it had he declined.)

I won't reveal what happens between Charlotte and Bob, but US critic Roger Ebert points out: "Lost in Translation is too smart and thoughtful to be the kind of movie where they go to bed and we're supposed to accept that as the answer".

This film doesn't try to provide answers. After all, life has no easy answers to these kinds of feelings either, and this is perhaps why so many people seem to identify with this film.

At some time or another everyone feels like Bob and Charlotte -- wondering who they are and what it all means -- but what Lost in Translation makes you celebrate are the unexpected connections with people along the way that change you and help you get a little bit closer to working it all out.

Labels: Movies

Saw this at the Cornerhouse last night. It's a character study of a man gradually being consumed by obsession as his life falls apart. Sean Penn provides a typically exceptional performance as Sam Bick, an estranged father and furniture salesman who hates his job and spends his time dreaming desperately of starting up a business with a government loan.

The mention of the assassination is misleading; it happens in a haphazard way near the end of the film, and up to that point Richard Nixon is a metaphorical device, representing the broken promises, distrust and lies in Sam's paranoid mind, only eventually becoming a focus for his action.

The plot is really the gradual dismantling of Sam's life. His wife is involved with another man, his kids are distant, he fails at his job and his loan is turned down. All this time, Sam is gradually coming apart; Sean Penn plays the first part of the film like a man who's physically struggling to hold it together, visibly taut with the effort. A pivotal point in the film, which Sean Penn delivers with incredible intensity, is a late night phone call answered by his wife's lover, which ends with Sam begging for contact as she hangs up. From this point onwards, Sam spirals out of control towards a pathetic and typically inept end.

It's harrowing but engrossing viewing. If you've seen Falling Down and remember the man outside the bank telling the world that he's not economically viable, this film could be the story of that man. (N.B. The film is inspired by real events; read about the real Sam Bick).

Labels: Movies

Went to see The Magic Roundabout today. The instincts from the reviews I glanced at last week were more or less right - it's a load of nonsense.

The main problem of the film is the lack of initial scene setting. The basic plot is that the Zebedee alter-ego escapes imprisonment of many years and unleashes all kinds of naughtiness on the world. Gang have save the day. It's a familiar device, but while the grown-ups might understand all the 70's characters, they're just as baffled as the kids as to why Zeebad has this grudge.

It's shakey ground for what follows, which is a series of disjointed chase and action scenes interspersed with some weird song set-pieces which serve only to crowbar in tunes for the 30-somethings ('Mr Blue Sky' by ELO was the highlight).

This film tries, as do most kids films these days, to please about three different target audiences on the instruction of the marketing executives, but the mess they end up with doesn't pull it off. The kids miss most of the trippiness and hippy characterisation of the original, but didn't seem to have anything else to replace it with but strange events happening to unexplained characters.

Oscar spent the last 15 minutes of the film shouting 'I want to go home'. I was thinking the same.

Labels: Movies

Da Mayor: Doctor...
Mookie: C'mon, what. What?
Da Mayor: Always do the right thing.

Ossie Davis died today. I knew he was a great actor from all the Spike Lee joints, but it was only from reading up for the trip to New York last year that he was a lot more besides - writer, director, civil rights activist and friend of Malcolm X; a true (Harlem) rennaissance man.

I'll remember him best for two roles - Da Mayor in Do the Right Thing, opposite his wife Ruby Dee as Mother Sister, and in Get on the Bus as Jeremiah , the old man taking one last trip on the Million Man March before he dies.

Labels: Movies