This Is England
July 21st, 2007
After transforming the bucolic English countryside into a site of horror with the nasty revenge tale Dead Man’s Shoes, Shane Meadows turns to Maggie Thatcher’s England with a skinhead coming-of-age story. This is England starts out as well-acted and superbly designed mid-eighties time-capsule but degenerates to a formulaic conclusion that cheapens everything that went before.
This Is England opens next Friday. Read the rest of my review at About.com.
This Is England. Shane Meadows, 2006. ***
Watch the trailer:
The Big Easy
April 16th, 2007
How not to do local color, y’all. Director Jim McBride lays on the Louisiana stereotypes in this Southern cop romance. From the first “Where are you at?” to the last gumbo party, the New Orleans details feel second-hand to me–and I’m just a German boy who happened to live there for a little while. I do know what Tipitina’s looks like from the inside, and that studio set wasn’t even close.
No matter. A Disney World version of New Orleans will serve just fine as backdrop for a steamy 80s love affair. Ellen Barkin, that strange and fascinating creature, plays a principled but inexperienced prosecutor who comes to investigate corruption in Dennis Quaid’s NOPD. There are murders to be solved, but never mind the plot. Quaid is all easy come-ons and grins as wide as Lake Pontchartrain, and you can’t wait for Barkin to let down her hair and be seduced while the Neville Brothers sing. With John Goodman, Ned Beatty, and Grace Zabriskie as “Mama.”
The Big Easy. Jim McBride, 1987. ***
- The Big Easy at Wikipedia
- Movie Screenshots has an entire series of Ellen Barkin’s sweaty Iko Iko run by the canal.
L’Effrontée
March 23rd, 2007
In 1985, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Lemming, The Science of Sleep) was just thirteen and cute as a button. L’Effrontée is only her third movie, and she owns it. The French vacation coming-of-age tale is a venerable subgenre (we’re fans of Girls Can’t Swim and Pauline at the Beach but not Fat Girl)–and this is a very fine addition. Charlotte plays the motherless daughter of a handyman who can’t afford to go out of town. Stranded, she enters the world of a perfect piano prodigy (Clothilde Baudon) while a creepy sailor twice her age (Jean-Philippe Écoffey) tries to buy her beer and her sickly friend Lulu (Julie Glenn) gets sicker. Like in many French films (Safe Conduct always comes to mind), drama is implied without having to be carried to some over-the-top climax. L’Effrontee is a lovely evocation of how much it can stink to be a teenager.
L’effrontée. Claude Miller, 1985. ****
After the jump, Europop madness, Serge Gainsbourg vs. Whitney Houston, and Jane Birkin singing Di Doo Dah.
Frantic
February 21st, 2007
Over the years, Roman Polanski’s culture shock thriller has acquired an additional level of disorientation: Harrison Ford gets lost in Paris, and the movie gets lost in the Eighties. Emmanuelle Seigner plays a greedy drug mule in Madonna duds, and together they’re desperately seeking Betty Buckley. Narrative and film grammar have grown a lot tauter since 1988, so the title doesn’t quite ring true anymore, and the terrorists aren’t nearly menacing enough. Anybody who’s ever suffered the indignities of consulates and embassies will thoroughly enjoy Polanski’s jabs at American bureaucracy. Achtung cinephiles: the region 1 DVD is pan-and-scan.
Frantic. Roman Polanski, 1988. ***
[tags]film, 3 stars, roman polanski, paris, harrison ford, emmanuelle seigner, betty buckley, eighties, pan-and-scan, bureaucracy, america, madonna[/tags]
