PREFACE
This is the sporadically updated blog of reviews by Harriet, author of In the Aquarium: a londoner's life.
I have kept the reviews separate to enable them to be indexed and therefore more easily accessible (see listing below).
FAVE FILMS DEAD MAN What an idea, the man is dying for almost the entire length of the film, the music is fantastic, its black and white, ideology, mythology, funny, sad, Johnny Depp sex god...
THE DRAFTMAN'S CONTRACT The first Peter Greenaway film I saw and possibly the most accessible. Beautiful set, costumes, direction. Fantastic soundtrack.
MULHOLLAND DRIVE I knew exactly what was going on right up until the last 15 minutes and damn it but then I lost it.
NIGHT ON EARTH Jim Jarmusch made the only film with Winona Ryder worth watching and it had Beatrice Dalle (say no more)
O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Roar out loud with laughter and tunes that make you love country music. My sister had to sneak out of the cinema ahead of our dad and me cos she was so embarrassed at our laughing.
ORLANDO Quiet, passionate, time travel.
PITCH BLACK Bails and I watched this with its bleached scenery and its whoar factor star. We LOVED him, Mr Diesel take a bow.
RESERVOIR DOGS Tight Tarantino gang heist gone wrong. Great soundtrack. And there's something about Michael Madson, dancing just before cutting off the cop's ear...
ROMUALD ET JULIETTE Truely lovely romance comedy.
THREE COLOURS TRILOGY Blue, White and Red. I liked them all. Quiet stories, beautifully shot.
THE USUAL SUSPECTS Its a story told. And the first time I saw it I didn't get the twist until just before it happened.
Seen The Reviews
Saturday 19 July 2003 Pimp + support Highbury Corner (can't remember name of the gaff)
Lead singer from the Country Teasers doing a solo set - still concerned by his lyrics but erring on the side of the fact that it has to be ironic. Venue was nice - small, great air con so temperature was good. Sound engineer kept suppressing yawns over his knobs and slides.
Micheal Dracula - 3 girls (one of whom was a suspected trannie - or thats what the friends said who could see) and a guy from Glasgow. Screaming banshee in the lead and a very heavy beat with squeely high pitched keyboard. Sounds from 50s b-movie horror films. Reminiscent of late 70s early 80s punk music - Susie and the Banshees, Joy Division.
Montana Feet - male voice. Band from Ireland. Rage against the Machinesque. Loud crashing heavy lyrics covered by noise. Repetative, angry at the crowd.
Pimp - Tom Waits meets preacher with a hammond organ. More Mickey Rooney in appearance than Clark Gable. Short tubby man in a tight suit sweating over the mike - hot and bothered screaming the lyrics. Low down and dirty.
Great use of a revolving set. Simple use of key items of stage furniture to create the impression/atmosphere of a multitude of settings - subway station, whorehouse, several bars, apartments, restaurants. Kenneth Branagh in the lead role was excellent. Wasn't sure about the play's message. Seemed to be saying something about how easy it is to descend from regular life with house and wife to the gutter life with all the pimps and tramps and prostitutes and from here to a life of crime by misadventure. In the search for some real life the hero found himself in prison being the bitch of a lifer inmate. From one prison to another.
Its been quite a while in coming but I have finally been to see something else!!
Friday 4 July 2003 The Matrix Reloaded Islington Warner Village
There are tonnes of links, pages, discussions, and a blog about all this so I'm not going to delve too deeply. I thought it was trying very hard to be as different and ground breaking and unfathomable as the first film. As is common with sequels it can't quite live up to it. Great fight scenes, and car chases and fight scene car chase combos. Not much content really. Was long but didn't seem long.
Most disappointing thing was the fact that it ended with a TO BE CONTINUED... reminiscent of 70s TV shows like the Incredible Hulk or Casey or something. This has to be the most despicable thing a film maker can do - whatever happened to the ideal of each film being able to stand on it own - to be understandable even if you haven't seen the first part, to stand up in its own right as a great movie. The great series did this (first star wars films, godfather, terminator etc).
3 women talked very loudly all through the film so much so that some of the dialogue was lost. They were also VERY annoying. Don't do this!
