Rain? Leather? Uzis? Slow-mo? Plot? Ah...Character? Um...Performance? Ahem...Sexy and inspired concept—werewolves versus vampires, with extra ammo—visibly collapses amid a slew of derivative Matrix shoot-'em-ups, excruciating line deliveries and cack-handed direction from Megadeth music video veteran Len Wiseman. Kate Beckinsale can only high-kick and cringe.
Intensely felt melodrama collides with saccharine world view in this tale of an Irish immigrant family who attempt to begin life anew in an '80s Manhattan filled with friendly junkies and hackneyed racial stereotypes (see Djimon Hounsou's savage-but-wise African artist). Top performances from Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton are undercut by director Jim Sheridan's squishy screenplay.
Andre 3000 and Big Boi's early clips are superior but fairly routine 'hood dramas, all booty calls and gaudy pimpmobiles. But around their ATLiens album, the day-glo psychedelic X Files wig-outs begin creeping in, reaching a peak in the sexofunkatronic freakerama of "Bombs Over Baghdad". Also lushly cinematic is the stormy Deep South pastoral of "Ms Jackson" and, of course, the multiple Andres of last year's super-catchy retro-futurist soul fantasia "Hey Ya". Pure pop genius.
When discussing Kevin Smith's oeuvre, most dismiss this '95 nugget as the dip between Clerks and Dogma. A mistake: as two slackers, Jason Lee and Jeremy London, hang around the mall doing nothing, plenty happens—comic-book iconography, smut, inventive swearing, Shannen Doherty pretty much playing her loveable hell-bitch self, and Ben Affleck marginalised. A buzzy, cynical, romp.
Beautifully gauged 1989 romantic comedy from the undervalued Steve Kloves, with Jeff and Beau Bridges glorious as two competitive but complementary brothers who constitute a lounge act. When they employ Michelle Pfeiffer's seductive Susie Diamond as chanteuse, Jeff's hard-boiled heart goes whoopee. Oscar-nominated Pfeiffer, cleverly, sings well but not too well. Lovely.
Straining to balance bog-standard biopic with anarchic art expression, Julie Taymor's biopic of Frida Kahlo is crammed with exquisite cinematic diversions (dream sequences, hallucinations, animated Kahlo paintings) while simultaneously stultified by the need to plod through Kahlo's life with startling apathy. Wild teen, bus crash, crippled, Diego Rivera, lots of sex, arguments, affair with Trotsky, big show in Mexico, the end.
For years, it was believed that no footage survived of the pioneering American Folk Blues Festival tours of Europe in the early '60s. Now a vast cache of performances has miraculously turned up by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Magic moments, every one.
Neglected by critics, rejected by director John Huston, The Unforgiven is nonetheless an essential companion to Ford's The Searchers. Sourced from Searchers author Alan Le May, it follows (spot the reversal!) a Kyowa girl (Audrey Hepburn) raised by a white family then hunted down by her 'real' Injun relatives. The genocidal ending, complete with half-brother incest, has to be seen to be believed.
Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1979 satire charts the experiences of a Polish clerk who buys an 8mm camera to record the arrival of his new baby, but becomes increasingly consumed by his hobby. After his employers ask him to make a film to mark their company's 25th anniversary, he's propelled into the position of political film-maker. With Kieslowski's documentary background clearly on display, it's a wry, heartfelt contemplation of the film-maker's burden.
