where you going?
nowhere

who are you going with?
no one

when will you be back?
later



























 
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).


ARCHIVES
Read other reviews here










BACK TO
In the Aquarium


CONTACT ME



 


REVIEW LISTING



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Citroen C4


CINEMA
Ballet Russes
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Bright Young Things
Brokeback Mountain
Broken Flowers
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Capote
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlies Angels 2
Confidences Trop Intimes (Intimate Strangers)
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Riddick
Crash
Creep
The Da Vinci Code
The Day After Tomorrow
Derailed
Down With Love
ENRON: the smartest guys in the room
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Family Stone
Fantastic Four
Finding Nemo
The Forgotten
Four Brothers
Good Night, and Good Luck
Gothika
The Grudge
Hidden (Caché)
Hitch
Hotel Rwanda
House of the Flying Daggers
Howl's Moving Castle
The Incredibles
In the Cut
Into the Blue
The Island
Kill Bill Volume 1
Kill Bill Volume 2
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The Libertine
Lost in Translation
Love Actually
Lucky Number Slevin
Match Point
The Matrix Reloaded
Mission Impossible 3
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Out of Time
Pride and Prejudice
The Producers
The Proposition
Secret Window
Sin City
Starsky and Hutch
S.W.A.T
Syriana
Transamerica
Unleashed
V for Vendetta
Walk the Line
X-Men 2
Yours, Mine and Ours


SHORTS
Tony Scott's Beat the Devil
Gold


PALM SPRINGS 17th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
JED reviews thirty films that he saw from the 250 films shown during the festival.
Adam and Steve
a/k/a Tommy Chong
Blush
Border Café (Café Transit)
Boynton Beach Club
Buffalo Boy (Mua Len Trua)
Changing Times (Les Temps qui changent)
Chicken Tikka Masala
Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus)
Cold Showers (Douches Froides)
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Favela Rising
Fuego: John Waters presents Movies that will Corrupt You
George Michael - a different story
Gimme Kudos (Qiuqiu Ni, Biaoyang Wo)
Gold
Joyeux Noel
Lost and Found
Low Profile
March of the Penguins
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
My Best Enemy
News from Afar
Odete
Persona non grata
Queens
Simon
That Man: Peter Berlin
Two sons of Francisco
Whole New Thing
A Year Without Love


COMEDY
Big Night Out, Comedy Pub 29 Jan 2005
Downstairs at the Kings Head, 1 Oct 2004


DANCE
Edward Scissorhands
Fuerzabruta
Onegin
Play Without Words


EXHIBITIONS
After the wave: tsunami remembered
Art Deco 1910 - 1939
Brancusi: the essence of things
Bruce Nauman - Raw Materials
Catherine Sullivan - The Chittendens
Dan Flavin - A Retrospective
Dreamspace
Invisible @ Corsica Arts Club
Rachel Whiteread - Embankment
The Weather Project
The Weather Project Revisited


MUSIC
CLASSICAL
Yuri Bashmet - Great Performers
Philip Glass - Orion


ROCK/POP/etc
Country Teasers
Little Barrie
Pete Rock
Pimp
Salt Perverts
Tiger Lillies
Tiger Lillies, Ether Series 2006


WORLD
Klezmer Swingers
Mariza
X-Bloc Reunion Festival


OPERA
Faust
The Handmaid's Tale


PERFORMANCE
Carnesky's Ghost Train
Immortal
Immortal2
Sticky


THEATRE
Cyrano de Bergerac
Edmond
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum
His Girl Friday
Julius Caesar
Lifegame
Man Falling Down
Playing with Fire
Stuff Happens
Underground
We Will Rock You


TELEVISION
Lost




COPYRIGHT
All content (words and images)
© Harriet Duncan
1997-2005
(unless explicitly quoted or credited)
Please link if you quote and ask permission to use images.

READ ME (disclaimer)






LINKS - elsewhere

100 Word Reviews
Armchair Critic
Arjan Writes
Clark Schpiell Prodcutions

Guardian Arts Reveiws
Guardian Film Reveiws
Glazed Donuts
Jailhouse Reviews

Movie Bums
Plot Kicks In
re:mote voices
Reviews Reviews Reviews!






BLOGS

Spearbearer Down Left
The Diogenes Club



«#Blogging Brits?»

Listed on Blogwise
Blogarama - The Blog Directory





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
 
 

20 February 2005
House of the Flying Daggers
Odeon Wardour Street


I had looked forward to this movie. I really wanted to like it. It was time we saw something good.

Its beautiful. Beautiful cinematography, fantastically chosen locations, fabulous costumes. Amazing fight scenes. Great bit at the beginning when Mei is dancing the Game of Echo - sort of following the sound of mounted drums. Also beautiful bamboo forest scene where men run throught he tops of the bamboo, slightly misty and rustling. Many twists and turns - who is conning who, nobody is who they claim to be. Ends with a scene where the three leads who end up being in a love triangle fight to the death. The scene starts in autumn and ends with a snow scene. Blood on snow. I was interested that the audience laughed when Mei got up after we thought she had died - this seemed to be the final stretch of the imagination for many of them - unable to suspend their disbelieve any further which I didn't quite understand considering the film is somewhat fantastical, both in the moves possible in fights and the changes of scenery, season etc.

So its truely beautiful to watch but ends up feeling a little insubstantial as far as plot goes. AFter reading the synopsis it makes better sense - it is apparently a love story wrapped up in an action film. Its just as a viewer I was concerned about the action as well as the love story. We don't actually know what happens to the House of Daggers in the end, despite this being integral to the story from the beginning, or at least thats how it seemed. Unless we take the last scene where within the love triangle we take their killing each other as a metaphor - two from the House of Daggers and one from the authories - they all killed each other, therefore do we take it to mean that after there were no winners in the larger battle that was going on. Dunno. I'm unclear.

The other factor which could well influence our satisfaction with the film is the actual theatre - never have I been in such an unbearably hot cinema, tightly squeezed and rabbit-warreny. The screen was also reminiscent of the old days before the multi-plex when multi-screen cinemas had tiny screens slightly bigger than a large TV. Not a good viewing experience. I would highly recommend avoiding it.


5:27 PM


 

12 February 2005
Creep
Woodgreen Showcase


The rash of recent horror movies has meant I've been seeing more of them than I care to. Mostly, however they aren't being particularly scary, generally just silly, and rehashed versions of other films.

This was no exception. Clever filming which kept you tight within close boundaries of vision, closeups, shallow depth of feild. Sometimes seeing the film from the character's point of view, sometimes looking at them from around corners. Also didn't rely totally on the cliche of dark corners but also had empty white spaces brightly lit to hurt your eyes.

Set in the tunnels under london, specifically around Charing Cross Station and the now closed Down Street, in the sewers and connecting passageways. Something is killing people, very violently. Lots of blood. Fear. The character doing the killing is a monster, slack skin and bruises and blood, pretends to be a doctor, can only speak in repetition of what he has heard others say.

The beautiful girl is chased around the tunnels, lots of people get killed, all those who she partners up with get it. She survivies.

Owes a massive amount to Death Line.

BBC review
Guardian review


11:52 PM


 
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