Cast: Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robarbs, Melora Walters, John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, Melinda Dillon, William H. Macy, Jeremy Blackman, Felicity Huffman, Michael Bowen, Alfred Molina
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Running time: 3 hrs 8 mins
REVIEW:
MAGNOLIA, that three-hour lengthy narrative of the happenings of 11 different lives in a 24-hour period set in Los Angeles is crafted with self-indulgence and effervescence by the complexly-minded P. T. Anderson. It’s long, very characters-driven (make that plural); almost esoteric that logic might be a fatal threat to anyone who is planning to see this. It’s a film composed of stories of lives, interlocking, paralleling each other, like spiderwebs so intricate that it could be a bit hard to decipher the connections. This could have been easily a bad film to sit with.
But thankfully to P. T. Anderson in his surreal and distinctive style, MAGNOLIA shines with brilliance. It’s nonetheless a magnificent film, stirring echoes to the world, showing us characters all with frailty – humans who consistently battle with the misfortunes of life and facing the struggles of the present with regards to the past. With courage bold enough to tell the tales, this film also shows the world the messages about the imperfection of love, the ghosts of the past, human frailty, forgiveness, infidelity, the fear of the future, and the ubiquitous power of chance in our fates, whether life is held by the threads of chance or whether life is just a series of strange occurrences.
From the start of the film, we are being prepared by Anderson by tales of strange happenings; the murder of the chemist in Greenberry Hill by three scallywags Green, Berry and Hill; and also the death of a boy who committed suicide but was shot by a firing gun while falling down from a tall building, who could have been alive as there was a net below. That gun was fired by his mother, who had a row with her husband and accidentally fired it, missing the husband by inches. And the gun was loaded by the boy himself days before, wishing that one of his parents might shoot the other. All these coincidences reverberate throughout the film, whether we’re all connected that by that strange chance. And no, this is not CRASH with cultural differences. This is MAGNOLIA and you better believe its sheer intensity.
This is emblazoned with stellar and compelling performances. The stand-out would have to be Tom Cruise’s Frank T. J. Mackey, the successful public speaker who teaches men how to seduce women in his lecture “Seduce and Destroy” with the tagline “respect the cock”, who’s also the total bastard. This is probably Cruise’s most defined performance all throughout his career, which will remind us that he’s Tom-Cruise-The-Actor in that time, and not the Tom-Cruise-Who-Went-Berserk-On-Oprah’s-Settee. Nominated for an Oscar Best Supporting Actor back in 1999, he was easily won over by Michael Caine in his CIDER HOUSE RULES acting bravura. Cruise shows fantastic acting skills in the scene where he shatters internally when an interviewer plummets him back to his real past with the question “Why would you lie, Frank?”, as he retorts grudgingly yet slowly seething “I’m sitting here silently judging you.” And his confrontation of his dying father, Jason Robarbs, is stunned with acting magnitude a few actors could have achieved nowadays. Julianne Moore is also a solid actor here as Robarb’s wife who’s been haunted by her infidelity, breaks down in a pharmacy with such fiery countenance.
Robards is dying in cancer, and the one taking care of him is Philip Seymour Hoffman, who revives the connection between a father and his long-estranged son, Cruise. In a TV show produced by Robarbs, there’s Philip Baker Hall, also dying, and a father of a despaired daughter Melora Walters (amazing performance by this lady), who’s drugged life wanted her to break free and at the same time pulls her back into the world of turmoil. The one who saves her is a policeman John C. Reilly, who parallels Hoffman as a caregiver to the community, and falls in love with Walters despite of her ineptitude towards life. Her mother, however, Melinda Dillon is a wife broken down by her husband’s abusive nature. And in the other part of the town, there William H. Macy’s lonely former-quiz-kid, Donnie Smith, who steals money for his braces operation to impress a local braced-bartender, which parallels to Jeremy Blackman, a kid who thrives on quiz shows but decidedly gives up due to a fear of an unforgiving future, causing his father Michael Bowen to be devastated as well as his mentor, Felicity Huffman.
It’s a complex interlocking of stories that might get too confusing when the explanation is furthered and sliced with too many scalpels. There are many scenes edited to fit each other perfectly, characters that shake with crisis, that all build up the main exclamation of the lies and sins committed by the fathers, the wives, the sons, and the daughters. And the revelation, when it comes, rolls down the hill and create an emotionally powerful stirring of the human nature. There are so many unexplained scenes, such as frogs falling from the sky, but as I have discovered this film had referred to the Bible in Exodus.
No matter how strange this film is, Anderson shows us that what we live in a strange world anyway so what’s the point of not liking this film. He gives this film introspection to life, styled in a way of intense scenes, vivid visuals, characters singing to Aimee Mann’s music. Just leave logic beneath your carpet and test your patience with this film. You’ll know it’s worth the watch.
VERDICT:
Complex and esoteric it might be, MAGNOLIA mustn’t be reduced to low-keyed cinema. In fact, it’s a brilliant, challenging, and truthful piece that will stagger you with its pure cinematic intensity emblazoned with outstanding performances by high-calibre actors, and top form audacity by director P. T. Anderson.
RATING: A
Cast: Claudio Brook, Frederico Luppi
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Running Time: 1 hr 32 min
REVIEW:
This early effort of the magnificent PAN’S LABYRINTH helmer, the visionary Guillermo del Toro is that epitome of unique style. He may be an export from the Mexican shores, but that doesn’t undermine his talents of creating moods and swings in this sophisticated horror film that completely re-imagine the vampire flick genre. CRONOS, yes, is in its core a vampire film but beautifully put, and doesn’t reduce its main protagonist, the antique dealer Jesus Gris (Frederico Luppi) to a creature of the night sucking blood and exterminating people but gives us the crux of the story – a lonely human who was thrown into the dark world, suffering the prices of eternal life, and at the same time, protecting his granddaughter from the harsh realities of life.
Gris, an antique dealer that sells old things some as old as him, came upon this device created by a 16th century alchemist called Cronos (Latin word for “time”) that was hidden under a statue of an archangel. Without knowing, the device becomes alive, showing golden miniature legs and injects a substance into Gris’s skin. It housed a parasite that grants eternal life, yet the receiver will suffer such terrible price. Gris, even aged and at the brink of his maturity, started to feel younger and a funny thirst for the red liquid, the abominable act, drinking blood. That bathroom scene in CRONOS is mostly haunting when Gris sees a man with a nosebleed and drips blood everywhere in the bathroom, and when he was alone, licks the little pool of blood in the immaculate marble floor. In his suffering, he seeks help with this dying millionare-industrialist, who seemingly sought after the device too, in selfish aims as to prolong his life because he’s dying in multi-cancer. The irony is present here from these two characters.
It’s not just the plot that feels peculiar, but certainly the characters were odd too. Del Toro has now become known for his putting of humanity in the strangest stories we could come across. In CRONOS, he puts the granddaughter as Gris’s source of survival apart from blood and the device, which had helped him when he was mistakenly thought to be dead from a car crash. This relationship between Gris and his granddaughter is often heartfelt and understanding.
Del Toro blends his horror craft with a human story with a black humour, as CRONOS oozes with some funny scenes, although morbid and dark but blackly funny. The morgue scenes, for instance, where the embalmer-cum-prosthetic-artist moans about not telling him that the dead body will be cremated when in fact, he had already drawn his so-called masterpiece on the face of the cadaver. It’s a film that swings from serious attention to morbid humour, and back to the Del Toro-esque visuals of heavy-palettes.
VERDICT:
May be far from the superior PAN’S LABYRINTH, Del Toro manages to craft his early effort with signs of mastery in building scenes and camera-works. CRONOS is a unique kind of storytelling, original and distinctive.
RATING: B+
Cast: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Running Time: 2 hrs
REVIEW:
Hitchcock had always been a classy auteur. Not that I’ve seen most of his films, in fact, I’ve never even seen PYSCHO or REAR WINDOW, which are considered to be horror/thriller classics of our time. So finally when THE BIRDS flocked on my movie-viewing territory, I could say “damn, Hitchcock, you’ve got class”.
THE BIRDS starts with a low-brow comedy where sophisticated-lady meets man-with-business in a bird shop, and when desperate-lady-for-romance embarks on a pursuit of the young bachelor in Bodega Bay, she was pecked by a seagull starting an apocalyptic flock of birds of different kinds attacking humans, flesh and blood wanted. This is where Hitchcock proves his deft skill in steadying his visual storytelling, focusing more on creepy sequences than actual gore and blood-splashing grossness. He combines humour in the first part of the film and rivets the audience half-way along with a plot, although scientifically unexplained (how the hell these birds start killing humans and creating havoc in the communities, they couldn’t have ultra-violent brains, could they?), and stirs in atmospheric mood, typically present in Hitchcock films as they’ve said (don’t ask me, THE BIRDS is the first Hitchcock film I was able to see). Technically speaking, this classic avian chiller transcends its genre into the modern cinema; how the scenes were constructed fascinates the keen eyes of the movie-going public, as Hitchcock builds up tension conveyed in disturbing sequences. Most hair-raising of all was the church/school scene when the main heroine, Hedren, starts sucking up a cigar and hundreds of crows slowly, and rather creepily, in the playground. It’s a brilliantly built scene. Most exquisitely horrific scene of all, however, is in the attic sequence where birds come in full attack on Hedren, who foolishly entered the loft and faced her fears. That quiet, fascinatingly strange scene in the end as well, where Rod Taylor carefully treads the grounds outside the house while all the birds observe in scary petulance, is something worth to watch and experience.
The sad thing about this Hitchcock film is that its material borders on the B-movie level, and doesn’t have the extreme potential to be way over the top of mediocre storytelling. He blends family plot, with Taylor’s mother unsure of whisking away his own son, and some bitter romantic undercurrents running beneath the main big plot of pestilential birds. Nonetheless, it’s almost rude to say this film isn’t good, because at its core, it’s an achievement on the build-up of suspense, thrill, and atmosphere that is very present and adopted nowadays. Surely, after watching this film, you’ll never see seagulls and crows the same way again.
VERDICT:
This 1963 classic chiller delivers the right altitude of creeps and skin-crawls. No wonder Hitchcock is that uber-fine auteur known for his atmospheric moods and mysterious plots. THE BIRDS may not have spread it wings, but definitely an achievement in technical aspects. For a 1963 film, come on!
RATING: B+
This epic, beautifully arranged songs of The Beatles, adapting the wide panoply of their songbook, creates a dramatic and inspired soundtrack to the equally beautiful film of artistic breadth, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. For ages, songs of The Beatles had been revived, rewound and reinstated, but never before there came an album that had been modified yet stayed true to the spirit of The Beatles, harmonising the contemporary sounds, soul, jazz, pop, rock, and of course, The Beatles-sound - into something worth listening to and might hook you consequently.
From the voices of newcomer actor Jim Sturgess, the lovely Evan Rachel Wood, Dana Fusch, Joe Anderson, TV Caprio, and U2's Bono, it has proved its array of talents. Starting off with the mesmerising "Girl" by Jim Sturgess, then puts on the dancing shoes with Evan Rachel Wood's "Hold Me Tight". There are many brilliant standouts, like Sturgess's rendition of "All My Loving", Wood's quiet heart-schmooze "If I Fell", Caprio's slow yet captivating "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (made me realise that it's not a happy song indeed, but about a person who wanted to hold somebody's hand but didn't quite achieve it), Joe Cocker's edgy "Come Together", the soulful and moving with gospel choirs "Let It Be", the intricate and meaningful "Dear Prudence", and Joe Anderson's "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" are only some of the few fantastic sounds. Bono also adds his "I Am The Walrus", Anderson with his vocal style in "Hey Jude", but it's this man named Sturgess who's a wonderful find, proving that can sing and act, with his "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Across The Universe" and "All You Need Is Love".
Movie soundtracks proved to be worth the sell indeed, as the songs perfectly serenades the story of the film. If The Beatles were alive, they could have never been prouder.
RATING: A+
Cast: Patton Oswalt, Jeneane Garofalo, Peter O’Toole, Ian Holm
Director: Brad Bird
Running Time: 1 hr 51 min
REVIEW:
With good intention, comes good outcome. This dishy, delightful new serving from Pixar Animations, with unbeatable efforts from THE INCREDIBLES writer/director Brad Bird, revives the recent lowbrow ingredients of animated films that plagues cinema nowadays, and offered us a winning tale of this rat named Remy who chased his dreams despite being chased by speeding knives and stomping feet. RATATOUILLE is as rich as your sumptuous dinner, as tingly as your appetizer, as savoury as your main course, and definitely delectable as your afters of trifles. And when it’s done, it’s worth saying “bon appétit!” after all.
Nothing comes indeed better than an animation with a heart. After the age of TOY STORY, MONSTERS INC, FINDING NEMO and THE INCREDIBLES – we know Pixar’s era has arrived, and that the frolics and flouncing of Walt Disney 2D fairy tales are done. Stunning, inventive, motion-capture animation histrionics has changed the monotony, and tales are told to inspire children, and surprisingly, the adults as well. Here in RATATOUILLE, the underdog formula is applied, and in this case – an under-rat – who grows up in a distant French town with a peculiarly talented nose and taste amid the population of rats who thrives on garbage. He found it difficult to follow his dreams, of course, he’s a rat (points to racial issues and discrimination), but was continually inspired by the idyllic Parisian chef Gusteau that “anyone can cook”. In cooking and food, Paris was the place to be and he discovers he needs a human in order to perform in his top skill. On the other side of the story, Linguini, a gormless chef-wannabe enters the restaurant with no talent at all and nearly destroyed the shop’s reputation by screwing up a soup. In a funny sequence, Remy comes in rescue to restore the soup and made it even much better that the whole public fell in love with it.
This is a fun film to watch, the spectacle never bores. The animation is a speculating wonder and breathtaking bedazzlement. The action sequences were wonderfully orchestrated, and the rats seemed more like rats, and the likes of Cinderella-ish rats were already part of history. Every movement of hair, every leap of Remy in the wind, and every platter served, deserved some worthy Oscar attention in the Animated Film category.
Most of all, the visuals wouldn’t work if the voice performances are dull. Kudos to the talented voice cast for lending a dynamo of creative voices. Patton Oswalt as the rat Remy is brilliant, so with Jeneane Garofalo as the lady chef Colette, whose voice was almost unrecognisable beneath the thick French-accented English. Ian Holm as the always-angry Skinner was equally talented. But it’s Peter O’Toole’s Anton Ego that gives the film a surprising impact; a portrait of hard-knocking food critic, whose reviews could threaten the lives of chefs and the existence of restaurants, steeled by age and ironed by complexity, but softened by one mere dish that transports him back to his childhood days when best dishes are served on the table by care and love of a mother.
Maybe this was why RATATOUILLE made sense. It’s almost flawless in its storytelling (not to mention its technical aspects), touching the humorous side, albeit giving us a rather ridiculous story of a rat wanting to be a chef and cooking up one of the most delicious dish in Paris (however who says ‘not ridiculous’ to the story of a father clownfish looking for his lost son in the ocean, or monsters appearing in closets scaring children, or toys moving about behind people’s backs?). It’s in the core of this tale that made this film unexpectedly moving with characters that flows with three-dimensionality. Maybe it’s the story of a small, discriminated entity daring to dream in a much bigger and more intimidating world; being criticised, disparaged, yanked on the hook, but still persevered to do something he ever dreamed of doing.
What matters most is that this is what we call animation with depth. Sophistication. Beauty. RATATOUILLE is as great as FINDING NEMO, and it’s surely a Pixar’s animation-extraordinaire and undoubtedly one of this year’s best films.
“Anyone can cook, but the only the fearless can become great.”
VERDICT:
Animated movies can never get better than this – brimmed with technical brilliance, touched with witty storyline, and served with a heartwarming message to everyone who dares to dream. RATATOUILLE oozes with sophistication that gives a delightful aftertaste.
RATING: A
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Running Time: 1 hr 47 min
REVIEW:
The problem with movies adapted from true-to-life events, especially the ones that made the headlines, is that you know how the story goes. So, sod the flick and let’s go watch something else that’s entirely new.
An hour and forty seven minutes later, there I was, still watching A MIGHTY HEART, a bit shaken, gripped and unquestionably moved by this film of astounding gravity. There are many films nowadays that are based on real events, but only a few wholeheartedly pay tribute to some tragic moments of our history. And because A MIGHT HEART is tinged with tragedy, it’s nevertheless directed and performed with passion and earnest determination, just like the main protagonist Marianne Pearl, who stood her ground, showed courage under fire while the world around her rages in confusion and chaos.
At the heart of this story is Daniel Pearl’s abduction in Pakistan, the American journalist who was kidnapped while in the territory of Karachi, and was wrongly accused as an American spy. While on his way for an interview with Sheikh Gilani, regarding the issues of the 9/11 attacks, he was kidnapped and never destined to find his way back again to his wife. Now Marianne Pearl’s struggle as the 5-month pregnant wife as soon as she knew that his husband never came home to her that evening is a physically, mentally, and emotionally distressing journey in search for his husband. It’s her story that’s the breathing life and blood that keeps the central core alive. Of course, we know the ending, as it the video of Daniel Pearl’s beheading and body being chopped to pieces was proliferated in the internet some years ago (I remember seeing it, actually, so gross and disturbing), but it’s the tension that was built in the film that instantly holds our horses and let us experience the heartbreaking search of this man chained to society and culture’s misunderstanding. Even though we know the tragic ending and Daniel Pearl dies – as soon as Marianne (Angelina Jolie) receives the news, in a emotionally powerful scene where she ebbs back into her room and cried out as hope was snatched away from her, we sit motionlessly, and just watch the scene unfold with ferocious attention.
Albeit surrounded by appreciable actors, mostly unknown, it’s Angelina Jolie who commands serious consideration. With all the Hollywood-and-tabloid sensationalism, she manages to pull out her punches and delivers her most solid and most demanding role in her entire career. Surely, her performance in A MIGHT HEART will prove that her nabbing an Oscar for her role in GIRL, INTERRUPTED was no fluke, and that she can really act. Her comprehension of Marianne’s struggle and strength through these difficult times of her lives can be felt realistically, from the pitch-perfect delivery of Marianne’s French-Cuban accent, to her demeanour – she imposes a believable and convincing character of a very strong woman, like an unflappable tree at the midst of a storm, but can still be very brittle and vulnerable like a glass. She shows this unyielding strength; rarely bore by any, especially at the farragoes that target the human weaknesses. It will be both dishonour and injustice if this performance gets snubbed by Oscars this year; as so far this year, Jolie’s probably the only one yet that deserved some inexorable appreciation. Dan Futterman, the acclaimed writer of CAPOTE, also stars as Daniel Pearl, which gives justice to this man who bid farewell to this world in the brutal hand of the terrorists.
Thanks, as well, to Michael Winterbottom for directing this film out of the Hollywood territorial bullshit. He gives this film a sense of urgency to this world, with choppy scenes as though they were reels from the television news programme, almost documentary-like. The decision of doing so honours the film that mighty impact it deserved.
VERDICT:
Humane, upright, and emotionally heart-stabbing, A MIGHTY HEART needs a mighty attention to this world of chaos and clutter, from the struggle of this pregnant Marianne Pearl in the slow, painful demise of her husband. Angelina Jolie’s powerful turn is worth seeing alone, giving her every scene that compelling gravitas done by real actors with compassion. Oscars! Watch and learn.
RATING: A-
Behind the Hollywood centre stage of dazzling musicals, where lights are too bright, visuals are too garish, there is a soft, resounding melody strung by heartstrings in the backstage of less feted, more personal films of bigger impact. This is ONCE, and ironically films like this never grace the screen many times. Stripped off from pretentious filmmaking, ONCE is that kind of film that says a big “no” to visual grandeurs and rather sticks to the documentary-style shots, evoking a feel of real urgency that musicals can’t just be about the shimmer but should be about sincerity.
John Carney’s story is simple: there’s an Irish guy (rather appropriately unnamed and considered as the Guy) who meets a Czech girl (let’s call her the Girl) in the streets of Dublin, while he’s plucking his guitar strings, singing his heart out. From the first few montages, one could perhaps be prejudiced and call this a homemade video or some sort due to its unstaged photography. Whoever’s calling this a “homemade video” should eat their own balls right now, because not just the Sundance Festival gave this a crown, but also Steven Spielberg too fell in love with this film and called it “...enough for a year’s movie-viewing pleasure.” But the story of the Guy-meets-Girl doesn’t end there; we somehow discover that the Guy (Glen Hansard) suffers a heartbreak from his ex, and he belts his vocals in the cold air of the streets, voicing the plea deep within; and the Girl (Marketa Irglova), soon we find out, is not a carefree spirit who walks the streets and sells flowers and magazines, but keeps responsibility of her young daughter, also confused with her relationship with her husband left at home.
He sings, and she applauded. That’s what where it started, leading to a heartwarming, rather bittersweet tale two musicians bereft with emotional stability and longed opportunities, finding solace in each other, ending with a modest, bittersweet heartache but still a happy, sweeping feel. Let’s not forget ONCE is a musical, and this is where the film truly soars – with its affecting, brilliant songwriting. Hansard is a gifted songwriter, guitarist and a singer, while Irglova is a delicate beauty of subtle piano skills, with a voice like a nightingale’s too. So when the two sits together in an instrument shop and played “Falling Slowly” for the first time, we see and feel their chemistry. The song is beautiful, moving and brilliantly noteworthy. We somehow thought maybe characters here just break up into a song, but unlike other musicals, the real dialogue is in its lyrics, the real beauty is in its rhythm. Hitherto Hansard, who had been in THE COMMITMENTS film ages ago, is considered a novice in acting, so with Irglova who had never been in films, they bring out natural performances that are believable enough to attain our satisfaction.
ONCE is a tale of friendship with a meaning. The two found understanding in each other and mutual respect. The Girl tells the Guy to London and win his ex’s heart back with his written music; and the Guy tells the Girl to be with his husband and make things work for the future of their daughter. They both lived to share that moment of compassion, and moved on to their lives bringing that moment to be a part of them forever.
Thus called ONCE, a profound tale of two people bringing meaning to their lives through the power of music and the voice of the heart.
VERDICT:
Low-budgeted, but never low-brow, ONCE is that indie of indie films that’s surprisingly profound, moving and heartwarming, not just through its beautiful music but its lead actors as well, who are so effortless. This might cause you to shed some tears in its ending, but as mentioned, it will lift you up into the air with this feel of happiness. ONCE, indeed, should be seen more than once.
RATING: A
When first faced with the fact that Julie Taymor was helming a musical using the Beatles songbook, there’s one common reaction from the world: she must be out of her mind. This madly ambitious project must be daunting task to go through, combining an unusual pastiche of musical, drama, love story, social commentary, and part history lesson, all told through the lyrics of the greatest band in history, The Beatles.
Now here’s the result – a flawed masterpiece. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is a wonderful cinematic experience that engages the heart, the mind, and the eyes in a visually exhilarating feast of creativity and art in motion. If you’re wondering how the hell in the world the Beatles songs would fit in the film, coming out from most unknown actors (except the lovely Evan Rachel Wood, who’s probably the most established in the scope of fame), well you better start believing it. The rendition is beautiful, the message is bold, the music so meaningful, and the pyrotechnics of cinematography and visuals are like nothing to what you’ve seen before.
The story is nothing too complex: a lad named Jude (played by fledgling actor Jim Sturgess), who works in a port in Liverpool, set his sails to America, leaving his girlfriend and mother behind, in search for his father. He founds him in Princeton University, a former military officer now a janitor in the renowned college, where he also meets the blonde suburbian beauty Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood, such a stunner of a lady), whose boyfriend had gone to Vietnam War with hopes of coming back. But not too long, the boyfriend dies in the war, leaving Lucy broken-hearted and afraid to fall in love again. However, when Jude meets Lucy, the universes collide.
Then they realised that they have fallen in love in the wrong time. With the Vietnam War raging on, America on the brink of madness during the era, Lucy’s brother, Max (Joe Anderson) was forced to get recruited in the army to fight in the war, while Lucy resolves to become an activist in political rallies against the government. Jude, on the other hand, remains to be an artist, drawing and painting what he believes in. “Doodles and cartoons” is what he does, says Lucy, while the world is falling apart. Torn by the revolution, and the era of destruction, the two parted – he went back to Liverpool while she carried on with her activist work. But because “All We Need Is Love”, they are brought again together by the Beatles’ heartwarming song between the gap of two high buildings.
There are also backdrop stories here, with the character of Prudence (T. V. Carpio) brilliantly introduced in the beginning, musing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” with great affection, letting us know that she’s a frustrated and furtive lesbian oppressed by her world. There’s Sadie (Dana Fusch), a thirty-something landlady in New York, who’s a struggling singer, who fell in love with Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy), a soul guitarist, who came to the Big Apple for a big break.
While the story tugs some strings, the visual razzle-dazzle is breathtaking to behold. The cinematography and visual editing of this film is a magnificent feat. Taymor blends visual storytelling with cutting-edge editing, like the scenes in the beginning, in the beach, the waves crash and rolls like newspaper pages flipping and scenes of the revolution; the strawberry fields scene, as Jude sings “Strawberry Fields Forever”, with Max in Vietnam, shows fantastic panoply of rich chaotic beauty, strawberries dropping like bombs and spluttering red everywhere mixed with warfare. It’s a scene almost too unforgettable. There’s also the histrionics of the military recruitment scene as Uncle Sam started singing “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, showing Max in a staged and choreographed sequence with masked military officers; the surprising homage to the pop art culture of Andy Warhol, a scene overflowing with colours; the adventure to circus wonderland in Willy Wonka-ish absurdity; the gentle motions of the actors in the lake and so much more.
Taymor also succeeds in her concept of using The Beatles as a medium to tell this story of love torn apart by revolution and brought together by fate and willpower. The songs that were used highly infuse the message and the story, as though the songs themselves were telling the story of the film and feelings of the characters. From the opening of Jude’s “Girl” to the campy old-school feel of Lucy’s “Hold Me Tight”, from the breadth of Jude’s “All My Loving” to the silent cry of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” by Prudence – it all evoked different emotions from the songs. Although the appearance of U2’s Bono was a tad ridiculous with his moustache, piping “I Am The Walrus” as Dr. Robert, and the silly rendition of “Come Together”, there are a couple of musical standouts. One of which is Evan Rachel Wood’s heart-tugging “If I Fell”, another, the majestic soul of “Let It Be” coming out of a black child’s mouth stuck in the middle of panic and killing of black people and the funeral that followed after, also the compassionate “Dear Prudence” as coming out of the closet and having a look at the world outside. The quietly sweeping “Because” as sung by many characters as they lay on the grasses and swam in the lake, the irony of “Strawberry Field Forever”, the anger of “Revolution”, the pain of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, Wood’s “Blackbird”, Max’s poignant “Hey Jude”, and the ending’s reverberating “All You Need Is Love”. Indeed, the Beatles have come a long way of telling the whole planet what this world needs, and using their music is the perfect way to tell this story.
It’s also blessed with appreciable performances, most plaudits go to the two leads, Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood (nice voices, I didn’t expect they could sing well, and oh boy, they do sing really well).
VERDICT:
Not the greatest film on Earth, but surely knows what this world needs: a down-to-earth story, a revolutionary visual resplendence, an artistic vision, a hope for peace, and a flavourful music from the greatest band on history, coming out from the actors’ mouths and voices. Surely, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE delivers that ubiquitous message that all we need is love. The Beatles could never have been prouder.
RATING: A
Upon watching TAXI DRIVER, there’s one worry I have in my mind about Travis Bickle, the inconceivable protagonist in the film, whether what kind of bloodshed masterpiece he’s going to cause at the movie’s closing bow. Misunderstood by his surroundings, it doesn’t take a leap of genius to completely comprehend the character of Bickle. We just have to look around him – the dark, mean streets of New York, the prostitutes, the junkies, the mess, the racism, and frustration of his humanity – in social context, he’s angry about the world, and most of all, angry about himself, leading him to self-destruction that he couldn’t fully control. What a great film this TAXI DRIVER, a classic interpretation of Martin Scorcese back in the 70s, about the madness of violence, and the violence of madness.
When we ride the TAXI DRIVER, we see the driver straight. We don’t see him fully but we see him through a broken light in the rear-view mirror. Just as the understanding for this Travis Bickle (a scarily magnificent performance by Robert de Niro); one glance, he looks pretty normal, but within the cauldron of his thoughts and the calculating looks of his eyes, as his belligerent neighbourhood of New York lays sprawling in chaos in his sight, there’s a passive gesture of paranoia. Coming out as a veteran from the ‘Nam War, and comes out rejected by a beautiful blonde bombshell that works in a political campaign office (because he took her to watch a “dirty film” he believed to be normal for couples to see in New York – there’s a social class comment here), his frustration builds up, either sexually, emotionally, or socially, that the more he gets in touch with the atmosphere he move about, the more he moves to the ignominy of violence. As he confesses with lack of hope “...there’s something bad going on in my mind, and I don’t know how to deal with it,” Bickle represses this angst but was soon reinforced when he meets the 12-year old prostitute shockingly portrayed by the then very young Jodie Foster, with creepy accuracy and tinged with precise 13-going-on-30 behaviour. Bickle sees the hope in the young prostitute, and that she could still set her wings free, and turns out as well that as he was saving her, he realised she was also his saving grace.
In one of the most unforgettable moments of the film, Bickle pulls out all his angry emotions, his craving to kill, to get his guns, cause a bloodbath, to save one child from the chains of cultural and social misdemeanours. We can ask ourselves at the end, is Bickle a hero or a victim of the rejection of the community? To be honest, he’s both. He’s a man who suffered in loneliness, and violence was his solution to his suffering.
Martin Scorcese directs this haunting portrayal of New York and this odyssey of a man in search for his lost soul, and he did a fantastic job of making TAXI DRIVER feel like it’s real and most believably so, a social commentary that has the impact to give people a good rollicking.
VERDICT:
The stunning Robert de Niro and shocking Jodie Foster are at the top of their class with TAXI DRIVER. It’s shuns cinematic idiosyncrasy and gives us a realistic portrayal of the embittered humanity. While considered a classic, it’s the character of Travis Bickle that stays so relentlessly, an icon to all the misunderstood misfits in the world.
RATING: A
