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LEEDS
FILM FESTIVAL 2003 / SHEFFIELD “CINEMADAYS” EVENT
report
by Neil Young
official
websites : Leeds Film
Festival & CinemaDays
SECTION
ONE : Sheffield / Leeds
Thursday
2nd October (Sheffield) : Kill Bill Vol. One, Mystic River,
S.W.A.T.
Friday
3rd (Leeds) : The Coast Guard, Aro Tolbukhin – In the Mind
of a Killer, Shangri-La
(Japan Goes Bankrupt), Ju-On :The Grudge, Visitor Q
SECTION
TWO : Sheffield / Leeds
Saturday
4th (Sheffield) : Love Actually, Alien - Director’s Cut, A
Mighty Wind
Sunday
5th (Sheffield) : The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
(Leeds) They’ve Got Knut
SECTION
THREE : Leeds
Friday
10th : All About My Father, Dead End
Sunday
12th : Time of the Wolf, Undead, Bubba Ho-Tep
Saturday
4th October
“Cinemadays”
press-screening event, UGC Cinema, Sheffield
LOVE
ACTUALLY
5/10
UK
(UK/US) 2003 : Richard CURTIS : 135 mins (approx)
>Hi
Neil,
>Apologies
for bothering you again but could you let me know what your thoughts on
Love Actually are?
>Kind
regards,
>Maria
>
>Maria
Banks
>Publicist
– Film. freudcommunications
Maria,
Must
confess, this genre usually very much not my kind of thing – I
never actually saw Notting Hill or Four Weddings, and wouldn't
have paid money to see this one. Found it tolerable enough, if far too
long and bitty (too many plots, few of them developed to much depth).
Enough laughs to make it worthwhile, however, and found myself quite liking
it. But afterwards some troubling thoughts kept nagging: given such a
relatively epic running time, it seems disappointing (to say the least)
that all of the main relationships depicted were heterosexual and white
(and nearly all upper-middle-class)… a very ‘white Christmas’ indeed.
There were some gay and "ethnic" elements, but these
were either relegated to the sidelines or treated as "punchlines"
or twists (the Nighy/Fisher bit, which ended very confusingly, plus the
issue of Tom Sangster's pointedly unseen girlfriend). Thompson/Rickman
easily the most satisfying part for me - this strand actually explored
love, whereas most of the other stories were more about lust (actually).
Seems to have been made perhaps with too much of an eye on the American
market - schmaltzy finale, though of course this goes with the territory.
Using 'God Only Knows' at the end was a big mistake - anybody who's seen
Boogie Nights will remember
this song used at the end of THAT also, and by any stretch of the imagination
Richard Curtis is nowhere near as good/original/funny a writer/director
as Paul Thomas Anderson. My rating: 5/10. But I'm sure it will be massive
at the box office!
Hope
this is what you’re after. All the best,
Neil
For
the full standalone review of Love Actually
click here
ALIEN
– DIRECTOR’S CUT
8/10
USA
1979 (director’s cut released 2003) : Ridley SCOTT: 116 mins approx
Scott’s
Blade Runner was the original director’s cut, and still the most
famous. Success of Exorcist
re-cut sent studios in search of other 70s horrors to disinter, especially
those with famous ‘missing scenes’ – Alien fits the bill: well-known
that ‘spiderwebs’ sequence (Sigourney Weaver discovers a cocooned Tom
Skerritt) removed at late stage. Included in this version: as with Exorcist’s
‘spiderwalk’ and other add-ons, easy to see why excised. Other additions/subtractions
less easy to spot – but is there a little more background music here…
was there always that heartbeat-ish sound behind the legendary ‘chestburster’
scene… and surely the original version didn’t end with Weaver saying “Come
on, cat” as she takes Jones to hypersleep pod? Opportunistic way of re-releasing
film – Oct 31 in UK for Halloween thrillseekers, plus to advertise DVD.
However: justified if it gets more people to see on big screen a movie
now over-familiar from small-screen showings. Stands up to multiple viewings,
of course – regarded as “semi-classic” though of course it’s really a
haunted-house movie in space, complete with elusive prowling feline (how
does the hypersleep business work with Jones, anyway?) Gussied-up, po-faced
Dark Star – Dan O’Bannon wrote both movies. Portentousness replacing
jokes. Key line: “Engage artificial gravity” as spaceship comes in to
land on alien planet. IE employ slumming classy British thespians like
John Hurt, Ian Holm, alongside Americans. But even the Yanks well-chosen:
patrician star-is-born Weaver, laid-back Skerritt, Yaphet Kotto and Harry
Dean Stanton for comic relief, the very easily rattled Veronica Cartwright
(you’d perhaps expect the kid who survived Hitchcock’s Birds to
grow up into something rather steelier) … How to resist a film that gets
Harry Dean Stanton into space?! Scott does stylish job, but real star
of show is crazy Swiss visionary artist HR Giger, whose designs for the
monster and his fossilised spaceship haven’t dated a second. Freshness
of Giger contributions emphasised by how drastically everything else is
so very much of its late-70s time (especially the Nostromo badge on the
crew’s sleeves): haircuts, beards, fashions, attitudes. This lot could
be the bantering, cynical staff of a radical newspaper – as in Carpenter’s
Thing, explicitly post-Vietnam,
post-Kent State bunch. Movie has been over-analysed in terms of sexual
metaphors – all about penetration, Alien represents male and female
characteristics, etc. Doubtful this was very high among Scott/O’Bannon’s
priorities. It’s hardly subtle stuff - Holm tries to stuff a rolled-up
porno magazine down Weaver’s throat during their big fight sequence –
and certainly very clunky alongside well-oiled nuts-and-bolts of thriller
mechanics. So thumpingly effective, you never have time to ponder the
ket question: what, exactly, does this alien eat?
A
MIGHTY WIND
5/10
USA
2003 : Christopher Guest : 91 mins
Fitfully
amusing folk-music satire in well-established Guest sub-genre – supposedly
in vein of This Is Spinal
Tap, which Guest didn’t direct. But Guest’s own movies (most recently
Best In Show satirise
only the subjects of the faux-documentaries, not the documentary form
itself (which was Spinal Tap’s trump card). Technique mostly consists
of allowing actors to improvise and riff on given topic, then cut just
after they get to a decent gag. Wildly uneven results: many fall semi-
(or even totally) flat. As usual, Fred Willard pretty much the only consistently
funny contributor. Parker Posey gives wildly energetic and committed performance,
but has very little to do. Structure: build-up to folk-reunion concert.
Minor mishaps, then it all passes relatively smoothly on the night. Soft
target, cheap laughs. Never as funny as you’d expect – could and should
have been sharper, though it’s seldom less than watchable. Format now
in need of some new ideas. Guest and company in danger of succumbing to
cosiness, and thus ironically laying themselves open to spoof/satire
treatment… “Wha’ happen’?!”
For
a full review after a second viewing click
here.
Sunday
5th October
“Cinemadays”
press-screening event (UGC cinema, Sheffield) / Leeds Film Festival
THE
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
5/10
USA
2003 : Stephen NORRINGTON : 110 mins
(seen
at UGC Sheffield)
Victorian
X-Men. Very negative advance
reviews will leave viewers braced for the very worst. But LXG turns
out to be rather better than, say, The Avengers (Sean Connery romp;
invisible man on sidelines); Wild Wild West (technologically advanced
villain stirs trouble in late 19th century) or Shanghai
Knights (anachronistic high-jinks, with eastern European capital
doubling for Victorian London: Budapest this time, instead of the usual
Prague). Hardly very high praise to say it’s better than those three turkeys,
of course: fitfully entertaining adventure seemingly tailored to please
12-year-old American boys who, of course, will have no idea who these
‘extraordinary gentlemen’ (and lady) are – hence much clunky exposition
to remind us who Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend) is. Original Alan Moore
comic aimed at much older, more sophisticated and well-read audiences.
Key-word is spectacle: hefty chunk of budget clearly spent on sets
and wildly variable special-effects (ranging from the top-notch – Mr Hyde
– to the woeful – his cartoonishly over-muscled opponent in big fight
sequence). Certainly hardly any cash lavished on the accent coach: Peta
Wilson (as Dracula’s acquaintance Mina Harker) keeps lapsing back into
Aussie, Richard Roxburgh (as the enigmatic ‘M’) inexplicably turns Cockney
two-thirds of the way through. Even fewer funds allocated on cobbled-together
script: laughably anachronistic dialogue (without saving grace of humour),
rickety plot. Actors do their best: Connery sails through it, Roxburgh
makes something out of almost nothing, but Townsend makes the biggest
impression – look of sheer contemptuous aristo boredom as the quasi-immortal
Dorian sashays his way through a sword-fight early on. All downhill from
there.
THEY’VE
GOT KNUT
6?/10
Sie
habe Knut : Germany 2003 : Stefan KROHMER : 104 mins
(seen
at Hyde Park Cinema, Leeds)
Movie-fatigue
had set in after a long and hectic weekend, so I was unable to give this
movie the attention it deserved. I’ll be charitable and ascribe the difficulty
I had in keeping my eyes open to my own physical exhaustion, rather than
any shortcomings in the film itself. From what I saw (75%), it’s something
of a Together on skis,
except more thematically coherent. Austrian Tirol, 1983: German radicals
gather at ski chalet, to consternation of Ingo and Nadia – a non-radical
bourgeois young couple who are going through a relationship crisis. News
comes through that Nadia’s brother Knut – who invited all his pals to
the chalet – has been arrested by “the authorities”. Casts sombre mood
over gathering. Somewhat slow in patches, but lots of well-judged character
stuff and low-key humour. Very good use of Nick Drake tracks – much singing
and dancing, allowing viewer to take in various garish mid-European early-80s
fashions. Uncomfortable sequences in which a cow appears to be repeatedly
hit with a wooden board by destructive adolescent lads in non-simulated
attacks. Ends on nicely ambiguous – but typically low-key – note.
by Neil
Young
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