Reviews

This is an exceptional and highly refreshing movie.

Refreshing because a)it's not set in anywhere vaguely resembling America, b)there's little American involvement in the plot - even then, they're pretty much the villains of the piece and c)there's almost a complete lack of the sometimes-unintelligible American accents.

Despite these massive drawbacks, the film steamrollered the customarily-parochial Academy, which astoundingly nominated it for and awarded an avalanche of Oscars - including Best Director and Best Picture (it won the latter).

This was, incidentally, an amazing feat which the institution repeated the following year for "Gandhi".

The reaction isn't all that surprising, really. This is pretty much a flawless work, from Collin Welland's script, the memorable music by Vangelis, Hugh Hudson's tight direction through to the sparkling performances by Nigel Havers and co.

It is, perhaps, more a story of struggling against odds than a straight-out sporting historical drama.Both main protagonists, the Jewish Harold Abrahams and the Scottish Eric Liddell, fought against circumstances (either from without or self-imposed) to achieve their goals.

That the film manages to make this point without crashing down into maudlin sentimentality is yet another definite point in its favour.

This film is an audio-visual tour-de-force, even for Alan Parker.

Together with designer Gerald Scarfe and, of course, Roger Waters, Parker has produced an absolute gem of a movie.

Eschewing the stale concert footage of so many rock films, the trio, instead, put together a coherent montage consisting of skilfully-directed live action sequences interspersed with weird, sometimes grotesque, animations, all overlaid with the unmistakable Floydian sound.Most of the songs are from the best-selling double album but there are one or two that are to be found only on this soundtrack.

Parts of the film must have been harrowing to direct; in the Fascist sequences, forexample, Parker decided to employ bona fide skinheads!

And it was a treat to watch Saint Bob; he'll never win an Oscar but it makes a change seeing a musician play a musician.

It's been said before but a word of caution: you really have to be in the right frame of mind for this film. "Not necessarily stoned", as Hendrix said, "just beautiful".

In other words, this is not for the terminally-depressed or the suicidally-inclined; even Pink himself(someone once called him Roger 'Troubled' Waters) found it heavy going.

I saw this film when it first came out but couldn't remember a thing about it. Having seen it again yesterday, I understood the amnesia.

It is dull, dull, dull. Even the infrequent war scenes were nothing to write to the Academy about. And, yes, I am aware that this film was made nearly 25 years ago and, no, I'm not judging it by today's standards of technology. I'm judging it by the (relatively-)timeless standard of film storytelling.

It seems incoherent, meandering, with no real point to it, apart from the pointlessness of war. Was that the point? If so, why did it take Coppola so long to make it?

As far as I'm aware, Sam Neill's first film - and what a start!

Starring a Kiwi, directed by a Kiwi and packed to the gunwales with Kiwi talent, this is definitely no Hollywood hyperbole extravaganza.Its sole concession to the 'star power' syndrome is the presence of Warren Oates ("Dillinger") as an armed subversive type (I didn't dare to use the dreaded 'T' word!).

The film is under the very capable guidance of the now-also-well-known Roger Donaldson, who was also responsible for another powerful home-grown effort, "Smash Palace". Impressionable youngsters like Peter Jackson may have seen this and decided their futures.

Like Jackson's LOTR trilogy, "Sleeping Dogs" is filmed on location in New Zealand. As such, the sets and scenery give a fair idea of life in provincial and metropolitan NZ in the mid-70's (but there's no stunning vistas of the majestic Southern Alps here, I'm afraid).

"Sleeping Dogs" is an adaptation of a story by New Zealand author C.K.Stead and pits an increasingly autocratic government of the near-future against a group of resistance fighters. Smith (Neill), very recently separated from a cheating wife, pretty much accidentally and quite reluctantly, gets involved with this group.

One scene in the movie was (and still is) something of a talking point here in NZ because it seemed, in hindsight, so chillingly prescient - life imitating art.

In the scene, a large group of protesters have clashed violently with unyielding, merciless, baton-wielding riot police; blood is flowing, injures are rife.

Some five years after the film had been released, in 1981, the then-internationally-banned Springbok rugby team from South Africa were allowed to tour here, despite clamorous local and global opposition.

New Zealand experienced the horrors and scarring of civil division. Wherever the Springboks played and also in the capital, Wellington, violence erupted. And it seemed to many of us at the time that the scenes that Donaldson had shot many years ago were now being replayed almost nightly on the news. Spooky.

A gross and ham-fisted piece of brain-dead, xenophobic American propaganda.

This film is just crying out for a savage spoof - something in the mould of "Hot Shots" - to deflate its stomach-churning sense of self-importance.

A real pity, though, that undoubted talents like Washington, Phillips and Damon got suckered into this but I guess even Lord Olivier had to eat. Avoid!!!

P.S this is one of the few I reviews from outside the U.S.

Alan Parker does it again! Boasting a canon of varied but always high-quality work (Midnight Express, Fame, Mississippi Burning, The Wall),this man, it seems, can't go wrong. The music is, of course, superb. That Parker managed to get together such a bunch of talented unknowns and had them working well enough to launch a number of chart hits is part of his genius.The other part is sheer storytelling ability. Humor abounds in the film,perhaps a typically Ulsterian brand ("You're working class,aren't you",one member is asked."We would be if there was any work",he replies). There's also some pathos to balance this and,perhaps,a small lesson on the perils of booze,sex & rock'n'roll. Parker and the film won numerous awards,including the Golden Globe and the BAFTA.The film didn't win an Oscar but it certainly isn't unusual for the Academy to overlook quality like this.

I simply must disagree with John Ulmer. I found this movie to be basically a mindless morass of stunts and special effects barely joined together by a threadbare semblance of a plot. It's a real shame to see Tommy Lee Jones underselling himself again by appearing in this. 'Nuff said.

After seeing The Fellowship of the Ring the previous year, I was really looking forward to the second instalment. I must say that I came out of the multiplex with mixed emotions.

While it was an excellent movie - the acting was superb, the locations stunning, the stunts and FX quite the equal (if not superior) to its predecessor - I felt it was a little disjointed. This was no real fault of Jackson's, he remained faithful to Professor Tolkien's vision. It just seemed he was trying to be everywhere at once - following two, sometimes more, separated groups.

All in all, however, still oceans ahead of most other action/fantasy fare coming out these days.

I felt the treatment - being set during the Civil War - was original and refreshing. Peter Fonda was, perhaps, a little bit bland as Prosper/o but still a workmanlike performance.

I was a bit disappointed that Gator Man, the Caliban figure, was portrayed as merely a 2D villain, not the somewhat self-pitying Frankenstein's-monster-type Shakespeare paints.